


Meet Me in the Woods

by kayabiter



Category: Cursed (TV 2020)
Genre: Alcohol, Angst with a Happy Ending, Blood Kink, Blood and Gore, Captivity, Complicated Relationships, Dialogue Heavy, Dubious Consent, Dubious Morality, Fairy Tale Curses, Fairy Tale Elements, Fuck Or Die, M/M, Magic, Mental Health Issues, Mental Instability, Mild Blood, Mild Sexual Content, Mind Manipulation, Murder, Pagan Gods, Seasickness, Swearing, Temporary Character Death, Tentacles (technically roots), Too Many Metaphors, Unreliable Narrator
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-27
Updated: 2020-11-28
Packaged: 2021-03-07 17:00:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 28,115
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26671033
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kayabiter/pseuds/kayabiter
Summary: Lancelot is trapped by a Fae curse - but at least he is not alone there, his ghosts keeping him company.
Relationships: Gawain | The Green Knight/The Weeping Monk | Lancelot (Cursed)
Comments: 26
Kudos: 51





	1. The Woods

**Author's Note:**

> The song is [Meet Me in the Woods](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5v8wqI8KE_E) by Lord Huron.

Lancelot ran.

He ran through the forest, stumbling over roots, catching himself on tree trunks - and they scraped his palms bloody with their bark, fuck, he couldn’t leave a trail - so he rightened himself and ran again, ran faster, ran further.

He ran until he couldn’t breathe, and then he told himself to bite it and ran more.

Only when the night shadows thickened into such a black tar that even his eyes could not pierce it, he hobbled to the sturdier tree that could somewhat hide him, and leaned against it, letting his feet rest. The boots had already been beyond salvation three days ago, and now they fell apart completely, so he had to shove them off and run barefoot. It had been the only choice at the moment, as he couldn’t slow down - but now he paid for it with long, bloody gashes and blisters. 

As no sound of pursuit disturbed the forest, Lancelot allowed his shoulders to fall and took account of his situation. The late May night was chilly, but tolerable, even with only a torn cloak for protection. From what he saw as he ran, the water was in abundance, so a creek should have been within his reach. He could hear squirrels and birds rustle in the trees, so starvation was also not a risk. In fact, there was only one real problem.

He didn’t know where he was.

_\---_

When he opened his eyes in the morning, the forest was silent. And in retrospective, it should have been the first sign. However, Lancelot made it his entire life strategy to ignore when something felt wrong. As such, he tried to get up, blacked out, swayed, fell, tried to get up again and finally managed to stumble to the creek. 

As he dragged an armful of brushwood back to the sturdy tree, Lancelot ignored the forest as one ignored the long-time lover they had a misfortune of having a fight with while living under one roof. The routine did not change, every movement was the same in the familiar flow around each other, but the silence was pregnant, and pointed looks were exchanged. Just as one might peer contemplatively into a window, making it abundantly clear how little they care, the same way Lancelot inspected the brushwood. 

He even had fir boughs in there, so that was nice. Not many things were these days.

Yes, these days, he thought, were the absolute rock bottom. After almost being killed by those pretentious assholes - golden masks, are you having a laugh? - he had to deliver a grumpy Fey child to his people. Then, he had to run from those same people. Well, what had really happened was that he had tracked them down, firmly set the boy down on what was clearly intended as a border, and spurred Goliath into galop, because he had known damn well he would be shot before any of them could explain anything.

And that’s how this mad chase had started. Fey seemed to be deadset on catching him, and he was almost sure it was to use him as their new weapon now that Percival would have had a chance to explain - which would be the first smart move they made in this entire war, except for finding a young witch to fight all their battles. 

But then it turned out some Fey still preferred to break a blade rather than reforge it. The first time Lancelot lingered when hearing them, he got an arrow in a shoulder for all his trouble. 

So, yes, he had run - through villages, and valleys, and hills. All the while he’d had to deal with fractured ribs and such severe blood loss it had been a surprise he hadn’t just keel over. But Father had always said his demonic nature made him more resilient. 

Amen, Lancelot thought darkly, watching as the green seeped into his feet, healing smaller wounds. Did not help with larger things, not in the long term, but at least the high it brought helped him forget about the pain for a bit.

Overall, the situation had been salvageable for the first two weeks, so he managed to recover somewhat. Then, he had run out of money, and breath, and time. Out of all the things, he stupidly missed his bow - it did make life much easier. And Goliath, how he missed Goliath - but it was better not to think about it, if he wanted to keep going. At least he still had his swords, though he had begun wearing them on his back - because honestly, he ran more than he fought these days. It had not stopped him - he had stolen, and threatened, and begged, depending on the situation. He covered his tear marks with grime, cut his cloak and his hair short, and mutilated the cross on his sword with stones and fire until it was unrecognisable. 

But the Fey had been closing in, and last night they finally got him trapped. He had darted left - they were there, leapt to the right - to see more of them; so he dashed into the forest, and for some reason, they had not followed.

Lancelot was starting to think there was, indeed, a reason. Because no matter how much he tried to backtrack his steps, he just kept walking in circles, always coming back to the same oak tree, and the same creak.

Then he remembered the tales he had heard, about the forest sprites luring the people into the fairy rings, making them dance until they died - or letting them come back only to find out that centuries had passed. A cold shiver ran down his spine as he wondered whether it worked on Feys, as well, whether he spent enough time with Menblood for the spell to have power over him. 

Panicking, Lancelot tried to count the days, and his heart sank as he realised that the Fey caught up with him on Saint Walpurgis Night.

\---

It only took him a day to start talking to himself and three more to start seeing things.

He had tried everything - prayers from the sacred books, hedgewitch spells he had heard from the trials, even curses he had overheard in taverns, even though the last ones were more for the sake of his fading sanity.

The only thing he could not try was a bonfire, because not only did he leave a flint behind, in Goliath’s saddlebags, but also the entire damned forest was _soaked with water_.

It was everywhere. It murmured, and dripped, and trickled, creaks and springs coming from the ground on every step. Lancelot felt like he was thrown into the water, the pearly grey skies above him a surface of the lake - and as the rain started, the light, never-ending drizzle, he wondered what the meaning of it was.

Because there must have been some hidden meaning - did they try to tell him the woods themselves wept? Was it a mocking attempt to extinguish the fire he had unleashed on them? What was it?

“It’s just water,” he murmured to himself, huddling against the oak, hiding his cold, stiff hands into the sleeves of the cloak, “and I just need to sleep.”

_\---_

But the next morning, nothing had changed.

And the one after.

And the next one, as well.

_\---_

“I can’t take it anymore!” he shouted, “Just - just finish me already!”

Lancelot froze, listening to the woods, but could not hear a thing except for the steady trickle and murmur of water.

_\---_

The sword in his lap felt heavier than before, but its edge was as sharp as always.

He raised it with a trembling hand and told himself to stop being such a coward.

But as the steel touched his wrist, he couldn’t do it - he yanked the blade away and threw it aside, where it clattered against the stones, the water running, silently, over them.

_\---_

On the fifth night, Lancelot saw a ghost.

But that was hardly surprising, and, swaying, the Ashman still pointed his sword at him, because what else could he do.

“Begone, demon,” he said, and then added, “or else.”

“I thought we were over it,” the vision said.

As it moved closer, Lancelot took a step back, staring at one of the many men he helped to kill. There were so many, their faces slipped his mind - but this one he still remembered. Why him, though?

“Oh, it’s probably because you severed my spinal cord and left me to be tortured to death.”

“... You can read my thoughts?”

“No, you just said it out loud.”

Oh.

“Well,” Lancelot cleared his throat, glancing away from the wraith of Green Knight, “that would do it. Still - exi ergo, transgressor.”

“What?” the Fey frowned, and Lancelot briefly wondered if Fey spirits were somehow immune to classical formulas purely because they did not understand the language.

“Depart,” he explained, and he was almost begging at this point.

“Not even going to apologise?” the man smirked, a poorly concealed amusement shining in his eyes. Such green, green eyes, the perfect colour of dark leaves silvered with water - the same one Lancelot saw everywhere in this cursed place.

“Will it change anything?” he asked bitterly, and just like that, all the mirth was wiped off the Fey knight’s face.

“It just might,” he said emphatically, keeping his voice low.

“So are you a ghost, then, or not?” the Ashman demanded to know, shifting his weight as his limbs started to grow numb.

“What do you think?”

“No one could survive that.”

“Mhm. No one did.”

Lancelot switched a grip on his sword because it was fucking heavy when he hadn’t eaten properly in weeks, but the knight must have misinterpreted the gesture.

“Ashman, please,” he said, “I am not here to fight”.

“What for, then?”

“To talk.”

Lancelot barked out a laugh - and then another, until the hysterical, ugly laughter just bubbled out of him, as he pressed his free hand to his mouth, trying to stop it, but it trickled around his fingers and dripped like tar.

“Sorry,” he said, when it finally subsided, “but are you trying to tell me that you came back from the dead just because I looked lonely?”

“No,” the knight said slowly, with a faint frown, “I said I wanted to talk”.

This time, Lancelot did not laugh - he scowled so hard, the scars on his face flared with dull pain, and they must have pulled rather horribly at his lips, because the ghost flinched. Suddenly embarrassed, he turned away.

“Go away,” he said, willing his voice not to tremble, “I am trapped here, anyway, I am useless to you - leave me”.

He could feel the sword slipping out of his hand, again, and once more adjusted the grip.

When he turned around, the ghost was gone, and he let the weapon fall, sinking down where he stood.

_\---_

Next morning, he woke up to the sight of the knight resting on the ground a couple of feet away, with the most mouth-watering meat pie he had ever smelled in his hands. But before he could keen or do something equally embarrassing, Lancelot rolled off the ground, sitting up, and looked at his unwanted guest sharply. 

“Are you here to test me?”

The knight coughed, choking on a morsel of food, and took a moment to compose himself. “What makes you think so?”

“You said an apology just might change something.”

The man was silent for a moment, but then he reluctantly nodded. “I didn’t think you’d catch on that so quickly.”

Lancelot frowned and shrugged. “I should have noticed yesterday, but I was too out of it. Is this also ghostly or can I eat it?”

He wordlessly tore the pie apart and offered him a half; Lancelot snatched it out of his hand before he could change his mind and bit into it.

It exploded in his mouth with so much taste, he blacked out for a second.

“If that’s what your spectral food tastes like,” he mumbled, “I should have killed myself years ago.”

The knight watched him with a wary expression and did not say a word. Lancelot suddenly wanted to comfort him by saying he was joking, but then he wasn’t.

“Is monastery food that bad?” the Fey asked, and while it was hardly the most pressing matter, Lancelot remembered vaguely that it was better to be polite when dealing with spectres. So he indulged the knight’s desire for a polite conversation about monastery meals. Which part, though, Lancelot thought, bread and water for the sin of being born, or nothing at all for the sin of failing to kill?.. Probably better not to mention either.

“It’s fine,” he replied finally. “Or was fine, I suppose.”

The knight lifted a brow in silent question.

“Well, I am here now, aren’t I?” he shrugged. “Talking to a Fey ghost, sharing his ghostly Fey food. Thank you.”

“You are welcome,” the knight said in a strange voice, and for some reason, Lancelot got the feeling he passed one of the tests.

\---

The ghost kept appearing - first just once a day, and then more and more, until he had grown used enough to his presence that the sudden greeting did not even startle him anymore. Lancelot braced himself for the interrogations, the mind games, the appeals to his non-existent conscience - but the knight seemed content to just… loiter around. He hardly even started a conversation, in the beginning, just an occasional question, though he always listened seriously to the answers - however stilted and awkward. His remarks demonstrated the dry wit and quick mind that intrigued the former Monk more than he wanted to admit.

Lancelot could see the Fey was biding his time, waiting for him to grow complacent. It reminded him of how one tried to tame a wild animal. The knight even fed him the same way - shared tiny morsels of food, until Lancelot stopped shying away and joined him properly. He tried to ask where the food came from, and why did the ghost even need it -

It still sated him, but Lancelot was not going to complain about it. He looked at the crumbs clinging to his fingers, and as he licked his lips, the lingering taste told him it was all a ruse.

But to his utter mortification, it was working. He was lonely, horribly lonely, and from his frequent visits into the hole in the abbey, Lancelot knew what loneliness did to his mind - and it was far from anything good. Arguably, seeing ghosts was already a bad sign, but he decided to stay optimistic - out of sheer spite. Having a ghost to distract him with amiable chatter from the maddening drip of water was better than having no one. Perhaps, there was a way out of this; perhaps, he could see Goliath again if he played his cards right and pretend to like the man. It was already proving to be less of a trouble than he had initially thought.

Still, he would have to wait a long time, Lancelot thought.

But then, for a ghost and a trapped man, there was no lack of time.

\---

“What is your name?”

The knight paused, and Lancelot waited patiently, looking at him from he sat cross-legged on the ground, a small knife and a piece of wood in his hands, as he just decided he had enough of eating like an animal and set to carve them the spoons. His companion, in the meantime, was busy peering into the water of the creek with a worried frown on his face. He was looking for a snake Lancelot told him he saw this morning. 

He didn’t - he just wanted to see if he can get away with a lie. And the ghost bought it, swearing softly and pacing for a bit before approaching the creek. When asked why would he worry about it, he muttered that he might be dead, but Lancelot was still alive, and what if the snake bit him.

It was a nice misdirection, but it did not explain why he fretted like a maid who saw a mouse, and Lancelot informed him of that. The knight seemed conflicted but then gritted out he just couldn’t stand anything with scales. And it was frankly hilarious to find, however late, a weak spot of the famous Green Knight - who still didn’t tell him his...

“Gawain.”

Huh. 

“You look surprised. Did you expect something else?” the knight - Gawain - asked with amusement, a small, wry smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.

“It sounds softer than I thought,” Lancelot shrugged, brushing off the stubborn splinter of wood - his hands were covered in them. He could have probably asked for one since the man seemed to conjure things out of thin air, but it gave him something to do, and he wasn’t about to pass an opportunity.

He only just finished carving the second one, when Gawain spoke again.

“And yours?” 

Didn’t he tell him? Odd.

“Lancelot,” he answered, putting the knife down.

\---

“Can you just tell me what you want?” he asked one evening, as they sat under the tree, watching the gathering dusk. The rain picked up again - but Lancelot had built somewhat of a roof over his head by now, so at least he was warm, even though he still couldn’t light a fire.

“Nothing,” the knight sighed, and that was a lie, Lancelot knew it was a lie - everyone always wanted something.

He frowned but didn’t move away - mostly because it was bloody cold, and he did not want to die from some stupid fever after he had survived for so long. Somehow, he still did not get sick from all the humidity and chill - but if it was indeed a trap, the Fey probably wanted him alive; he saw that done to valuable prisoners before. 

Here, under the shelter of the woven roof and the branches, and next to another man, it was tolerable. For a ghost, Gawain was running hot - insanely so, more than a normal human would. He wasn’t a human, though, and Lancelot never spent enough time with Fey to know how they would feel like - except for Percival, but the boy was exhausted, and so was Lancelot, memories of those days such a ragged patchwork...

“Are you cold?” the knight’s voice sounded right above his ear, and he startled, realising he listed to the side, almost resting his head against Gawain’s shoulder.

“No, I am just - just tired,” he said, yawning and rubbing at his eyes for good measure, hoping the knight would drop it, but he had no such luck.

“I can start a fire, if you want,” the Fey offered, and Lancelot blinked at him owlishly.

“You can?”

“Yes - why? You can’t?” the man frowned at him.

All this time - he could have just asked...

“No,” Lancelot forced out.

“Wait - how is that possible? You must know how to,” Gawain’s frown deepened and then he added, “you always shot those burning arrows.”

Lancelot swallowed and fidgeted, trying to move a bit away.

“Do you hate me for that?”

“Well, I am a bit bitter,” the knight smiled, but it was a tense, forced expression, “but I suppose no more bitter than you are at what the Queen did to your camp.”

“I am not,” Lancelot said immediately. “I don’t care if they burned.”

Gawain looked taken aback, and he swore inwardly at the slip of his tongue that revealed how little he cared. It damaged his mislead zealot image, and he couldn’t afford it - they probably thought he could be salvaged, and it was his only hope. Thankfully, the Fey seemed to sense his morose mood and returned to a safer topic.

“So why didn’t you start a fire?”

“I told you - I can’t. Don’t have a flint, and everything here is too wet. Why else?”

“I thought you just didn’t want to.”

Lancelot was absolutely perplexed at that one. “Why wouldn’t I?” 

“Bad memories?” the knight offered, narrowing his eyes slightly, “Self-punishment?”

“Gawain,” he said slowly and with feeling. “It’s just fire. If I am cold, I will start it, and I am not that insane that I would let it spread unless I think it should.”

The Fey coughed, and Lancelot could have sworn there was a tinge of red on his cheeks.

“Right,” he mumbled, “let me…” the knight stood up, and when he bent over to get the brushwood Lancelot stubbornly squirrelled away in the hope for the change in the weather, the Ashman got slightly cross-eyed. Maybe he did need to sleep, Lancelot thought, trying to stop staring before Gawain caught him.

His body must have agreed because, in just a dozen of minutes, he was dozing off. And even though the warmth from the fire should have been enough, even though he tried not to, Lancelot still fell asleep leaning on the knight’s shoulder.

_\---_

“Is it the Trinity Guard that hurt you like that?”

The knight touched the leaf, letting it run over his fingers, and Lancelot was in no way wondering how it felt, and…

Wait, wait - backtrack.

“How do you know about this?” he asked suspiciously.

“Still suspicious?”

Gawain was smiling a bit, but again - as almost always - it was a tired, tense smile, and while before it did not bother him much, now Lancelot felt a twinge of guilt at doubting the man. But god, no, he had been there before. Oh no, he thought, I am not going to make the same mistake. Begone, trickster - I finally caught you on a lie.

“Yes.”

The knight sighed, letting the leaf go.

“Alright - ” he said, turning around to delight Lancelot with a frustrated twist to his lips and a faint frown darkening his forehead, “you talk in your sleep.”

That was - ridiculous. Preposterous, even.

“No, I don’t,” Lancelot replied and immediately felt as a child scolded for not confessing he stole a cookie, as the knight looked at him with an unamused face.

“You absolutely do, and it is freaking horrible. I’ve learnt more about your - Christ,” and he said the word like it left a foul taste in his mouth, “than I ever wanted to. Among other things,” the Fey tackled as an afterthought.

Lancelot straightened, drawing up.

“Well,” he said with as much dignity as he could muster, which was - less than desired, “no one makes you stay. You might, excuse my language, bloody well piss off.”

“You wish,” Gawain grinned, and his knees almost buckled with relief. No, he really, really didn’t wish for that.

“Wait, but what did I say?” at the knight’s inquiring look, he prompts, “About Christ?”

“Ah,” the knight’s face turned long, “I am not sure, but it sounded like you couldn’t decide whether you wanted to eat him alive, or bed him, or leave him to die in excruciating agony.” Gawain looked apprehensive - nervous, almost, when he added: “Is that how you all felt?”

The reputation of humankind depended on his answer, and for once in his life, he chose mercy.

“No,” Lancelot muttered, “I think it’s just me.”

\---

“Seriously - how do you know?”

“Lancelot, you do realise I am a ghost?”

“... Yes?”

“And you killed them all less than a stone throw away from the place I died?”

He was not sure how the entire thing worked, Gawain was really stingy with details, but if he had met them somehow...

“Did they hurt you?” Lancelot asked, not worried an ounce - just his fingers kept wringing at the sleeves.

“No,” the knight shook his head, “I got out of there before they could”.

“Good,” Lancelot blurted out before he could stop himself.

In the ensuing silence, he watched as a smile spread across Gawain’s face, lighting it up even further than it already was, and it evoked such a horrifying, wonderful feeling that unfurled from his chest to his stomach, that... 

“Tell me,” he asked, “is the Wolf Blood Witch still alive?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The way I write Lancelot in this one is heavily influenced by [tnico](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tnico/)'s Lambert - if you are into The Witcher, check it out, it's feral.


	2. ... still there.

Later, much later, Gawain would tell him this question almost got him killed.

\---

But he didn’t know that. In fact, Lancelot felt so alive, he didn’t know what to do with it.

He tried hunting, but there was no prey serious enough for him to spend a lot of time chasing - mostly rabbits, and once he caught a black grouse. Gawain looked startled at how he managed to hit the bird with a single throw of a knife.

Lancelot didn’t tell him that every time the knight was not around, he trained and trained and trained until his body tapped out. He needed his strength back, because the weather - the weather was changing, a warm breeze in the air, and didn’t know what was coming, bad or good, but he prepared anyway.

But in reality, he no longer spent most of his time alone - because the ghost seemed to decide he was the best company the afterlife could offer. It was baffling; while he knew he was smarter than most, and definitely funnier when you could actually make him talk, Lancelot still was a person who dealt the knight the most damage.

Somehow, Gawain seemed to forget about it these days. And perhaps he needed to remind him.

The knight did not hear him coming - but he still managed to dodge the knife. It did not help him, though, because Lancelot counted on it and the next move he made brought Gawain to the ground.

He straddled his hips and pressed a knife into the pale skin of the knight’s throat. Gawain jerked, tried to push him off, but Lancelot just pushed the blade further, almost breaking the skin, and slowly, the man leaned back, watching him warily.

“I hoped we will not end up like this again,” he said evenly, though Lancelot could see the disappointment in his eyes - and he sneered at it, bared his teeth.

“Well, it’s because you seem to forget what I am.”

His hand did not waver, he did not pull back - but he should have known that a man who gave him an entire speech while dying from torture would not shut up with his preaching at a mere knife.

“Who, Lancelot. Not what,” Gawain corrected, and that was the last straw.

“No matter,” he snapped, and before the knight could admonish him again, “who or what, I can still hurt you”.

“Do you want to?” Gawain asked quietly, searching for something in his face, and Lancelot suddenly felt afraid he was going to find it.

“No, but I will anyway,” Lancelot promised bitterly, pushing off the ground abruptly and turning around. “I always fucking do.”

He heard Gawain suck in a deep breath and smirked mirthlessly at the fact that the knight was, after all, still scared of him; it did not bring the usual satisfaction, though.

And the insufferable man ruined even that by circling him and standing before Lancelot, a slightly worried expression on his face.

“You can find the way not to do it, with a mind like yours.” 

Lancelot scoffed.

“My mind, Gawain,” he said under his breath, “is not a pleasant place”.

The knight crossed his arms and frowned.

“Whose is, Lancelot? Do you think I haven’t had thoughts that tormented me?”

I thrive in that torment, that’s the problem, he thought, but still forced out, “You have?”

The knight was silent for a moment and then set his jaw as if gearing up for a fight.

“The mill.”

“What about the mill?” Lancelot bristled.

“Do you know what I thought when I saw you?”

Of course he didn’t, he wasn’t the one to read minds - though he could guess, given that at that moment, Lancelot was so engrossed in torturing one of Gawain’s warriors and enjoying the way it felt, that he even forgot to guard his back. He would not have dodged another arrow in time - still didn’t know why the Manblood chose not to use that. 

“The first thought was that I finally got to fight you,” Gawain began, drawing him back out of an entangled mess of thoughts, “and then you walked over - _strutted_ over - and I thought it was a shame I wouldn’t know whether I can wipe that smirk off your face if I get my hands on you.”

“Well, you probably would have,” Lancelot frowned, gripping the sword a bit tighter, “I am not really tenacious when it comes to torture.”

The knight groaned.

“No, Lancelot, not like that.”

He looked at him with lifted eyebrows, and Gawain shook his head before stepping closer.

“I wanted to see if you would be as fierce in bed as you were in a fight,” he murmured, and let his arms fall to the sides, but did not reach out. “If I could taste your blood when I bit into your skin, I bet it would...”

“Stop,” Lancelot said, and the knight fell silent.

He almost left then - but after just three steps, turned around and walked back to the Fey. Lancelot circled him like a wolf, peering at the knight’s face, seeking out a sign of lie; but Gawain’s expression did not falter, as his eyes followed the predatory, slow movements of the Ashman. He slid his feet over the wet, dark leaves so silently and with such grace, dance-like, it was like they could actually get away with this thing between them.

And maybe, he thought, in this strange place they could.

Maybe here he would be safe from the wrath of gods and people alike if he allowed himself a taste.

Just a taste.

\---

“God, Gawain,” Lancelot moaned, scrambling to get away, but the knight yanked him back, and fell forward, planting hands on either side, caging him in.

“Had enough?” he asked, a bit out of breath, and Lancelot felt light-headed at the sound. He retaliated for it by biting at Gawain’s wrist, but the knight just laughed, not even flinching.

“I guess that’s a no,” he said so airily as if he didn’t just thrust his hips so hard at just the right angle, that Lancelot saw stars, “Tell me when you do”.

\---

He did tap out at some point in the night when the feeling of the knight inside him started to border on uncomfortable. Gawain looked smug as hell, but he was also too wise to say anything aloud, so Lancelot pretended not to notice. Besides, he was so thoroughly fucked out, his eyes just couldn’t stay open.

“Exi, seductor, plene,” he yawned, “omni dolo et fallacia…”

“Wait,” the knight said, tugging him closer, all broad shoulders and firm chest and strong arms, “you think I am a seducer?”

No, Lancelot thought, breathing out heavily into the dark fabric of the man’s tunic, I sleep with all of my ghosts.

“Yes, Gawain,” he mumbled, frustrated, “I think so, and you can stop pretending otherwise because it is working anyway.”

_\---_

“So who do you talk to apart from me?”

“Other ghosts.”

“Are there many?”

“Some.”

“Your family?”

“... Some. Can’t see all of them.”

“Who, then?”

“... My brother, once.”

“Want to talk about it?”

“No.”

“Oh, thank God. Gawain? Gawain, where are you going?! No, wait, please - I am sorry, I just… you know how I am with words, when it really counts. I only know what to say when it is a fight. Wait - was I the one to kill him?..”

“... Yes.”

“You fucking liar. I can’t believe - you are a monster.”

Gawain shook with silent laughter, tears streaming down his face.

“At least,” he gasped, “I now know you do feel guilt, Lancelot.”

\---

One morning, looking at how Gawain’s eyelids fluttered in his sleep, casting tender, fickle shadows, Lancelot found himself doubting the knight’s honesty again.

It was the first time te knight fell asleep in front of him, the fire burning out into barely glowing embers as the morning crept in, and Lancelot used an opportunity to reflect. He had heard the stories about ghosts - almost became such a story himself. They were vicious, vengeful spirits, all black smoke and white bone, nothing gentle in them, only blackness and despair - especially when they showed their real face.

By now, he was pretty sure he saw Gawain’s mask slip enough times to have a good idea of what lay beneath. And it was light, not darkness - blinding, violent, unstable, but light.

Besides, there were these cracks in the marble, these chips in the armour that Lancelot, for all his wild imagination, was convinced he would not have been able to conjure. He was pretty sure that ghosts did not have sunburn spots on their cheeks one day that faded the other.

Looking at the knight when he slept also felt like hooking his fingers under the edge of the mask and pulling it aside - just to take a peek.

“Why are you looking at me like this?”

Because I think I am in love with you.

“Just looking for a weak spot.”

“Mhm. Shall I get you a mirror?”

“... Actually, I would kill for one. I probably look like a wraith myself - or a mad hermit - do I?”

“Just a bit.”

_\---_

“I’ve never swum in the sea,” Gawain murmured, his head resting on the Ashman’s stomach. It was, in Lancelot’s opinion, too heavy for a ghost, but he didn’t know how to bring it up. Besides, he enjoyed running his fingers through the soft waves of the knight’s hair - and then the words caught up with him.

“How is that possible?” Lancelot startled, propping up on his elbows.

The man shrugged, jostling him a bit with his stupidly hard shoulder, and he bristled briefly, but then settled again. 

“Always was there when it was fucking freezing. I remember being seven - touched it with my toes and immediately said I wanted nothing to do with it.”

Lancelot mulled over it.

“You’re sure? Doesn’t sound like you.”

“What do you mean? Yes, I am bloody sure, I was there.”

“Doesn’t mean you remember it right,” he noticed softly.

Gawain looked at him at that, a heavy implication in his eyes.

“I didn’t mean it like that,” Lancelot muttered, fidgeting, “I am not insane. It’s just - you were a child. It was a long time ago.”

“Are you calling me old?” Gawain asked incredulously.

“I mean, you’re dead, so it doesn’t matter.”

The knight looked surprised, like he had forgotten about it, but then his face set into the familiar impassive expression, as he nodded and leaned back, looking up at the lacerated hem of a tree crown.

“Right.”

Lancelot thought in silence for a moment.

“I was at one of Uther Pendragon’s sea castles once,” he started, fingering the ties of his shirt nervously, but then forced his hands to halt. “It was a - strange place, but there was this tower.” He swallowed. “They say you can see France from it.”

“It’s the one in Dover?” Gawain clarified, and when Lancelot nodded eagerly, the knight hummed. “Yes, I’ve heard of it. And did you?”

“What?”

“See France?”

Lancelot is silent.

The rain dripped and pattered around them.

“No,” he said, “the weather wasn’t right.”

\---

Lancelot laid back, braving through his hesitation, and the ground embraced him readily, cold, wet and dark, a scent of loam hitting his nose. It was decay, he thought, but the one that was full with the promise of rebirth. Perhaps, it would transform him as well - perhaps, when his body woke up, there wouldn’t be a trace of him left; someone else will take his scraped knees, and aching ribs, and dishevelled curls, and walk them out of this forest.

Perhaps.

He swallowed anxiously, tracking Gawain with his eyes, and as he waited, the forest murmured around him; it rustled in his ear, and above him, it whispered with light rain, cold water sliding down the leaves and dripping slowly all around them.

The knight took his swordbelt off, and slowly opened the buttons of his tunic cuffs, rolling the sleeves up. He seemed so calm, so collected, face full of serene, otherworldly light - the juxtaposition of Lancelot in every sense. 

The Ashman dug his fingers into the ground, staining them black with dirt, and he burned up with shame, his stomach lurched with nerves, but he would not give that up, no matter what. He was trembling, acutely aware of the wet leaves under his back, soaking slowly through the fabric of the cloak. 

Gawain walked closer, feet almost silent while they should have squelched, sinking into the ground. At that moment, more than ever, Lancelot believed him a ghost. Just as unhurriedly, he crouched in between Lancelot’s legs - there was predatory grace in the knight’s measured movements that heated him from inside, robbed him of air.

Shouldn’t they say something, he thought in alarm, but then their eyes met, and Lancelot forgot all the words he had ever known - the old French lullabies his mother used to sing, smoke and salt hanging in the air, the sombre Latin prayers as he huddled for warmth in chilly shadows of the cathedrals, the rolling harsh English orders as the steel burned in his hand.

There wasn’t a language in this world to describe what they were going to do, anyway.

The green, too green eyes were all that he could see - they felt like a deep end, dark still waters that buried Lancelot under, as he gasped for air, and pleaded for mercy like he never had before, and he was terrified, and the world was so bright, as Gawain took them both higher and higher, above the wet tree crowns, higher until Lancelot believed the grey sky belonged just to him.


	3. The Prison

When he woke up, Gawain was gone - but he was not alone.

Lancelot swallowed, glancing at the blade under his chin - there were five more at his back, steel gleaming like silver in dreamy, deceitful shadows of the forest - and tilted his head back, narrowing his eyes. It was his signature look of defiance and submission that always made people pause and reassess, provoked them into questions that allowed him to wiggle his way out the bounds and strike at their weakest spot.

The Fey did not question him, though - he just drew his hand back and then hit him on the face in an angry, short movement, so hard the Ashman’s head snapped back.

Spitting out the blood, Lancelot wondered grimly when had they had time to get smart.

“This is for Gawain,” the man spat, scowl so fierce Lancelot couldn't help but wonder if his face was going to stick like that.

“And there is plenty more coming,” and here, that seething anger, he could latch onto it - 

\- but the Fey had gotten smarter, and the next hit was strong enough to render him consciousness.

Through the blackness that ate at his vision, he heard them talk.

They said the Green Knight was dead.

Lancelot wondered if it meant, after all, that he was, too.

He considered it, but the ache in his hands, the gnawing hunger in his stomach, the blisters on his feet - those were all dirty, wild signs of a man still alive, desperate tokens of his survival.

But if he was still alive, it meant he could still die, as well. Could still hurt - and he would, he could see it in the tense shoulders of the Fey, could hear it in their strained voices. It was going to be a long night for the Weeping Monk - and even longer one for Lancelot.

They noticed him wake up and made him walk behind their horses, hands bound, a humiliating display - a perfect mirror of what he had done. Lancelot did his best to ignore it. He thought about Gawain’s hands, and his lips, and could not believe a ghost would be so - tangible, and warm, and full of light. What did he know, though, lost in these woods, and Father had always said he had too wild of imagination.

He swayed on his feet, stumbled and slipped, but always rightened himself and jerked his chin up, glaring at his captors as they looked down on him from their horses.

Lancelot wondered, briefly, if Goliath was still alive, but it hurt more than he could take, and he forced his head into silence, stumbling behind the fair folk on the way to his end. 

So, when the Fey had finally caught the Weeping Monk, they had thrown him into the darkest cell of the dungeon and shut the door.

It had been three days ago, and Lancelot was sure he was going insane.

It wasn’t even the starvation or thirst. He had been on the run for a while, after all - and most of those days, he’d been starving and begging for clean water. It had still been better than what he had now. At least before there had been kind-hearted villagers, willing to let him near the well, in spite of the grime that coated his skin and tattered clothes. 

Before, there were sounds other than dripping water, and there… there was light. Now, there was only still, humid, heavy darkness and the cold that seeped into his bones. And, worst of all, he couldn’t sleep.

Lancelot strained against the bounds, trying to stretch his neck, roll his shoulders - something mundane, something easy to do that would drag his mind out of the dark water that flooded it as the silence stretched and uncertainty grew heavier. How long could it take them to find a noose or an axe, he thought. It was easy to kill someone as weak as him, what were they waiting for.

They must be waiting for their commander, he thought over and over again, but no matter how much time he spent thinking about it, he couldn’t figure out who could that be. The Wolf-Blood Witch was dead, and Merlin vanished without a trace, from what he heard. 

Even Gawain - was it really his name or just a fickle of his imagination? - must have truly perished if he still did not come to see the prisoner.

Just as he felt his mind slip into the numbness again, a distant slam of the door jerked him awake. Lancelot immediately strained his ears, tilting his head to the side, hungry for any piece of news - bad or good.

He could hear the footsteps and voices, muffled by the thick stone walls. And then, as the door opened, the swaying flame of the torch blinded him.

Lancelot keened, jerking his head back and almost falling over himself. Unable to see anything but the pulsing dark spots, he could hear someone swear, demanding to take the light away, and then the hurried steps. He flinched when an unseen visitor knelt next to him and tried to curl up before another hard hit with a boot came on his ribs.

“Easy, Ashman - breathe.”

It couldn’t be, he thought.

He tried to say something, but his lips were parched, bleeding cracks in them, and so was his throat, so no sound came out.

“Here,” and there was a cup at his lips, which he almost pushed away because he still couldn’t see and even the lightest touch to his face startled him badly.

Still, it smelled like water - and only that, so he took a hesitant swallow, and then another one, gulping it greedily down.

Something wrapped around his hand, halting it before he choked. Almost like fingers, but slightly - different… But the smell, the smell - he knew it; or he thought so.

“Green Knight?” he asked quietly, unsure.

“One and only,” came a wry reply, and the tired humour in his voice - that he remembered, as well.

So the ghost - the ghost was just… A ruse. Smoke and mirrors. Gawain was alive, but immediately after the short spike of relief, terror flooded him as he realised that it all that happened between them was just another cruel trick his mind played on him.

The Green Knight was alive, not Gawain, and, God, he had taken the man to the Brother Salt’s Kitchens, and now he was at his mercy.

This was it for him, then.

“Why did you run, Lancelot?”

How did he - ah, the boy must have shared the story of their brief time together before he tracked the Fey down and left him there - ran, because...

“You would have killed me,” he croaked out.

The knight shook his head disapprovingly - and Lancelot could see it because the darkness finally started to recede. 

“Have you forgotten what I told you before? All Fey are brothers. Even the lost ones.”

The words sounded genuine enough, just as they did before, but he could see now there was a root slithering over his wrist, and more kept spreading from the ground, wrapping around his legs, overlapping the shackles.

“Is this what you do to a brother?” Lancelot breathed out, feeling the vines slither all over his body, holding him down.

“No. This is what we do to a traitor.”

He was silent at that. Should have known it wouldn’t be an axe - not after witnessing the brutal executions of his brothers by the Wolf-Blood Witch.

“What are you waiting for, then?”

The knight, who was before staring at him with a faintly worried face, frowned.

“What - no, Lancelot,” he hurried to say, “I am not here to execute you.”

He waited for the man to continue.

“No harm will come to you at my hands.”

Lancelot could not fight the relief down anymore, sagging slightly back, shivering as the roots pulsed and slithered around him like snakes.

“... Almost.”

Fuck.

“What is to happen to me?” he asked, with such apathy in his voice, that the knight frowned even more fiercely.

“You don’t know - of course, you don’t”, he sighed. “A trial - a Fey trial.”

Lancelot did not ask what kind, allowing the knight to gather his thoughts. 

“We need to know what is really in your mind,” he began to explain after a pause, “and we need a cast-iron guarantee you won’t be able to deal significant damage.”

Well, that was ominously vague.

“What does it mean?” Lancelot frowned.

“You have to undergo a ritual – it’s blood magic, mostly, but someone needs to,” the knight winced, “lay with you”.

Lancelot could feel the panic seize his throat. No, he thought, there must be another way, they can’t… He couldn’t let this tarnish the only good memory he had left.

“Who would do such a thing?” he asked, because surely no Fey would want to touch him just to keep him alive.

“I will.”

… Sometimes, Lancelot really hated how his skills made him into something people tried to keep at all costs - because he always fucking paid most of them.

What little purity he had left in his body, burnt into his skin by the ghost’s lips, would now be gone by morning.

“Can I refuse?” he asked, wondering if could use the shackles to kill himself - was going to Hell, anyway, and at least slitting his wrists or snapping his neck would be a better way to go than burning.

He was fairly sure it would be burning, because the Fey guards had a bet, and he had overheard them. The odds were good for burning.

“No.”

“Well, then,” Lancelot swallowed, “do your worst.”

The knight did not flinch or wince, but his eyes hardened - so at least he could still hurt him back, even a bit, which was a petty consolation. Better than none, he thought, and it was a familiar thing, to satisfy himself with less than he wanted, but this time it really cut deep.

But the knight spoke again, and that tone...

“Let me try to do my damnedest instead.”

… that tone - it was so familiar, that Lancelot could not help it anymore. Maybe, he could still pretend it was him. He wanted it so badly.

And the longer he looked at the knight, the easier it was. Lancelot knew how Gawain moved when he wanted to touch him - and he could almost believe the stiff way the man held himself was because he was just holding back, trying, for some reason, to be careful.

Gawain wrapped his fingers around his chin and tilted it slightly up, helping the root slide inside. Lancelot’s lips parted on an exhale, letting it in reluctantly - not like he really had a say in that.

"Take it," the knight whispered, "here is your way out, Lancelot - take it."

His eyes must have been dazed, but they still followed Gawain's every movement, albeit sluggishly so. As the new vines slid under the torn sleeves of his tunic and spilt over his thighs, he squeezed them shut, trying to fight down the shudder at the invasive feeling.

"No," Gawain ordered sharply, "keep your eyes open."

The tone bore no place for an argument, and so he obeyed at once, eyelashes fluttering as he tried to focus on the man. It took him a while, as he choked around the oak root in his throat, chest heaving for breath; there was a thin sheen of sweat on his forehead, and the first droplets slid down his temple, his neck.

The knight leaned down and licked them off.

“Not bad,” he murmured.

He had been in the fucking dungeon for days, how could it be - and then he gasped, as the Fey’s sharp teeth sank into his throat.

“Bet your blood will taste even better.”

The words and the sharp pain that followed finally made him jerk awake, and he tried to scramble backwards, tugging against the roots on his wrists and ankles - but they just tightened in warning, not crushing the bones - yet.

Lancelot stilled, quick, shallow gasps not giving him enough air to think clearly, as he frantically remembered how he heard these words already.

“I’m not going to harm you,” the Fey repeated, leaning back and sitting on his haunches, and his mouth was dark with blood - his blood, Lancelot realised queasily. The green eyes were glinting in the weak light of the torches.

If he could have mistaken Gawain for a human before, an uncanny resemblance Father had warned him about, now there had not been a chance.

“Why the hell did you bite me, then,” Lancelot exhaled angrily through clenched teeth.

“I told you,” Gawain reminded in a conversational tone, “blood magic”.

And then the knight leaned in and bit into his mouth.

His first instinct was to bite the man’s tongue off, way out or not. But even starved, beaten, sleep-deprived, Lancelot had not lost his composure. 

He didn’t know how to react, lost in the omissions and hunches, and decided to just wait for it to end - but then the knight pressed a bit closer, tilting his head and - and licked.

The stoic mask slipped off Lancelot’s face as he sucked a breath in. 

“What was that,” he asked in a shaking voice.

“Mhm?” Gawain hummed, looking to the side, at the roots that were slowly shaping itself into some - arcane symbols, if he had to describe it. It looked a bit like the woven sigils the Fey left to mark the road, twists and knots overlapping each other.

“Is it - the magic already?”

“No, not yet,” the knight answered, tearing his eyes away from the symbols and looking at Lancelot. He was briefly taken aback by that intense, inhuman green, unease settling in his stomach right under the warm, pulsing root that wrapped around his midriff.

“When then?” he demanded to know.

“Soon,” Gawain said softly, “you would know.”

He tilted his head, glancing at Lancelot’s blood-stained lips, and the Ashman bristled immediately.

“Is it necessary?”

“Do you have anything better to do?”

Lancelot thought about it for a moment and shook his head; Gawain did not waste a moment, leaning back and licking into his mouth again.

It did not matter at that moment if the woods were a dream or not. He had, after all, been chasing a man with the abandon that made Father take him away once and sternly explain that he could not let the rage cloud his mind like that. Lancelot had nodded, promising to restrain himself - and then the mill had happened.

Fuck, but that had been a brutal lashing. Would have been even worse if anyone figured out it was not the only rage that drove Lancelot to madness.

Just when he had started to answer, hesitant, swiping his tongue against Gawain’s, the knight groaned and leaned even closer. It was exhilarating, and terrifying, and both - but Lancelot was starting to feel light-headed, a vine tugged at the corner of his lips.

It sobered him up at once, and he pulled away, pushing instinctively with his tongue at the insistent plant, but it stubbornly pressed back. It started to coat his tongue, and fuck, he was suffocating, and a panicked keen escaped his throat…

The vine retreated, replaced by the knight’s warm mouth again.

“Sorry,” he murmured, “won’t happen again,” and then his tongue was in Lancelot’s mouth, licking away the bitter herbal aftertaste and replacing it with the coppery tang of blood. 

He moaned around it, eyes slipping close once more - and Gawain let him this time, cradling the back of his head with one palm, as the other settled on his thigh, right next to the thicker root weaving over the tense, twitching muscles.

“Easy,” he murmured, hands sliding up, stroking against the dark fabric of Lancelot’s pants, stained with blood and grass and ash alike.

“We need to get you out of these clothes.”

Lancelot could not really see what he could do, bound all over by iron and wood alike, and so he quirked a brow at the knight. The man glared back, but then the roots rose from the ground - and that was terrifying, something snake-like in their movements, so Lancelot coiled back without a thought. They dove under the seams of his tunic, and ripped - it barely required great strength, his clothes were that tattered, but it still made him swallow anxiously. So far, the roots were almost gentle, but who knew how long it would last.

“I control them,” Gawain said, as if guessing his thoughts, “they are my part of the trial.”

He did not even question that - for all he knew, if the Witch could do it, then why not the Knight. Still, he had one thing to clarify.

“How well?”

A small, wry smirk tugged at the corner of the knight’s mouth.

“Well enough for what we are going to do.”

The roots hooked into his pants and yanked, making the fabric fall apart.

Lancelot bit into his lip so hard the cracks opened again, and tried to wriggle in the firm hold of the roots, but they were unrelenting. More of them covered his bare bloodied feet, sliding between the toes, and crawled up his ankles to wrap around the shins and pull them apart, baring him to the knight.

It was a horribly, painfully vulnerable position. And though he had spent his entire life as a black shadow against the red banners, now he felt inadequate at the contrast - covered in grime and blood, bruises and cuts, a dark and torn shadow next to the radiant light of the Fey knight. But when he tried to pull up, angle his hips away, the roots dug painfully into the meat of his thighs, yanking at his knees to spread his legs back open.

“Don’t hide,” Gawain said sternly, “I mean it, Lancelot - you can’t do it right now.”

He shot him a murderous glare, straining against the roots, but the knight just glared back.

“If you try to hide, the ritual will kill you.”

Lancelot stilled, looking at the man incredulously.

“And you just tell me that now?”

“I am not supposed to tell you at all,” the knight grumbled under his breath, and then swayed forward, kneeling between Lancelot’s thighs. His hands rested, hot and heavy, on the Ashman’s hips, and they were surprisingly ordinary - just the calloused, warm palms of an experienced warrior, something so plain - almost like Gawain had once been just a man.

They also felt exactly as he remembered.

“I know you’re scared,” the knight murmured, “but try and trust me not to hurt you more than I must, alright?”

It was this brutal honesty that did Lancelot in. If the knight had said he would not hurt him at all, he would not have believed him a bit. He knew when people said these words - when they were already planning where to better sink the knife in your back. There wasn’t anything in the world that came without pain at all. No matter the reason behind, no matter the intention - it was there, always. 

Lancelot had always listened to the promises of heaven and scoffed inwardly - he had no faith in the absence of suffering. But the necessary pain - that he could believe in.

Nodding mutely, Lancelot breathed in a pattern he had devised when he was - eight, probably. It had not changed since then - breath in, count to five, breathe out until you can’t. Repeat until the darkness gives up.

But his old, naive tricks were irrelevant in the face of Fey magic, and he was so, so far from that little boy who cried until the tear stains wouldn’t come off. He was a man now, and Gawain was responsible for the large part of it - Gawain, who commanded the roots, the vines which crisscrossed his stomach, wrapped around his ass, spreading him obscenely open, as he tried in vain to find purchase, scrapping his heels on the dirty prison floor. But the roots, the goddamned roots would not even let him do that, and they were now crawling down his...

“Lancelot, it’s still me,” Gawain reminded, “I can still feel you.”

“You - what?”

The roots were not holding him down anymore - they were stroking his wrists gently, he realised, swirling over the thin bones. 

“Breathe,” the knight ordered, “it will soon be over, and then I will get you out of here.”

 _I_ , Lancelot noticed- and here it was, a slight roughness under his fingertips, a hidden latch to tug at until the whole puzzle fell apart.

“What will we do then?” he asked, heart racing as he put it all on this one last hint. 

The knight seemed to realise what he was doing and tried to back down...

“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves, the ritual…”

… but Lancelot never, ever gave up something he sank his teeth in.

“Fuck the ritual. Do you - you, Gawain, do you trust me? Do you trust me not to be what I seem?”

The knight pulled back slightly, brushing a thumb over the tear marks.

“Yes – you shouldn't have asked, but I do.”

“Then tell me what we will do. Lie to me, if you must, just give me something to hold on to.”

Gawain looked pensive for a moment and then slowly began speaking.

“There is a tower here,” he said emphatically, though he had to keep his voice so low, it was barely audible, “the tallest fucking one I’ve ever seen. You can see the sea from there, even, if the weather is right. It’s abandoned - no one can brave those steps. But we will. I will take you there, and bar the door so that not even gods themselves can get in, and if you tell me you want it, I will take you, again and again, will show you what it really can be, until you are hoarse from screaming.”

Gawain broke off and breathed slowly in and out.

“But if you tell me you don’t want to ever see me again,” he added, “I will obey your wish - though I would still guard that door on the other side so that no one can get to you”.

You brilliant, glorious bastard, Lancelot thought, looking at him in awe, you cloak-and-dagger man, but he knew he couldn’t say it.

Gawain understood, anyway.

There was still a problem, though. Lancelot listened to himself, ignoring the heat licking at his stomach, pulsing under his skin.

“It didn’t work,” he mumbled darkly, “I am still fucking terrified.”

The knight sighed heavily.

“I know. But I hoped it might make the next step easier.”

Lancelot blinked back tears.

“Must you…” he tried to say, but his voice broke.

“Yes,” Gawain forced out, and he sounded almost as ruined, “Yes, Lancelot, I must. I must do it if you are to live.”

And then the knight swallowed and said, voice firm and sharp like an edge of a knife.

“You must live, Lancelot.”

He could not see clearly, tears swimming in his eyes, but he felt the man shift between his legs, felt the hot, slippery weight against his entrance, and then -

...and then -

the fucking magic slammed into his mind like a battering ram, scattering all his walls and flooding Lancelot’s head with blinding light. 

\---  
  


He could feel it rip his mind apart, tear it open, laying it bare for the Fair folk. How ridiculous, utterly idiotic it was that he spent all this time slaughtering them in his quest for salvation - and now they were the ones to judge. Bracing himself, Lancelot let the magic in - and peeked inside as well.

  
  


God, there was so much fire.

  
  
  


Wait, that village - it wasn’t in England, - 

\- why did it smell like salt and smoke again, no, no, dark hair fluttering in the wind, who is tho woman, where is he, God, is it - no, please, not this - ...

… mom?

  
  
  


Bastards.

Sick, fucked up bastards. Wretched, pitiful scum, he will kill them all, he will tear their throats out with his bare teeth - 

… he was seven. He was seven, and he didn’t eat in five days, and his entire family was dead. No one was coming, but he still - still should have avenged them…

But he was seven, and he didn’t know how to call the green fire out of his hands. His father was going to teach him, said he would do it in a week - a week too late, as the red flags appeared out of nowhere, surrounding them, just the next morning.

And then there was no one to teach Lancelot how to conjure de flamme verte; no one to call it that. Without it, his hands were useless - small, broken things, could not lift a sword even.

He shook, and he cried, could not force the tears to stop - but he did so in silence until one day they opened the cell and stepped back in horror, as the little Fey boy looked up at them with eyes stained black.

They asked him if he had enough, and the last of the Ash folk seemed to think a bit - but then he nodded and stood up. Lancelot walked the long winding hallways of the abbey, a Fey child snatched away by humans in a cruel mockery of the tales. He let them lead him away and sit him at their table and share their bread and water with him.

Because his father might not have taught him fire, but his mother’s last words burnt just as fiercely in his mind. 

“You must live, Lancelot.”

They told him later that he had stepped out of the darkness of his cell to join them in the light - but little did they know, that the darkness had already latched onto him, sank its claws deep inside. He had carried it around, a burden behind his ribs, thunder in his lungs, that no whips and no holy words could reach. 

  
  


He murdered his first Fey because he didn’t have a choice.

Then murdered the second because it did not matter anymore.

And the third - the third one he murdered because it made him feel alive.

Father praised him for his devotion.

Then his voice grew hesitant; a little after, he stopped saying anything about it. 

As the days passed, he knew the man suspected him. He barely let him out of his sight - which was fine, until the moment the old monk started to caution him against extremities.

Lancelot looked at the cross, tears falling down his cheeks as he asked about love, and thought, with absolute clarity, that he was going to enjoy killing the man so much.

His only faith was his own survival. He just needed to wait a bit more, and then, after all the Fey were dead, it would be the Church’s turn. And then, after he murdered all the Paladins...

Sometimes, in the wee hours of the night, when the world slowed down, the clung of the swords and the neigh of the horses giving way to quiet hoots of owls and rustle of wind, Lancelot thought of peace. He briefly entertained the idea of sneaking onto a ship, going across the sea - back to where he could have built a future on the burial mounds, to honour them. Thought he also of marrying a fair woman, fathering a son - or a daughter - with her; tried to imagine holding a babe instead of a sword, whispering words of love with the lips more used to orders and prayers.

But the words rang hollow and the images unravelled like poorly woven wool. It always ended the same in his dreams: the house on the seashore burnt, the woman along with it, and the child cried until it lost its voice.

It always ended in red flags of Paladins, dripping with blood, and fair folk who left him to die.

All Lancelot wanted was to watch them all burn - and once they were gone, once they were nothing but ash, he would step in the same fire and finally come home.


	4. The Trial

But with fire, always came light - even though Lancelot could not see it now.

He came to himself in - darkness. Scrambling up, he whirled around, ready to dodge an attack - but the darkness just swayed, following his frantic motion, and settled right back, vicious and light at once. He looked around, and every - above him, and under his feet, and all around - was only still, absolute darkness, at first. It felt as blinding as the brightest of light, and Lancelot started hyperventilating. But as he heaved for breath, the struggle of his lungs the only sound, his eyes adjusted and caught a twinkle above his head. Like a starry night, void so grand and exciting, it made Lancelot feel insignificant. 

And he fucking hated feeling insignificant.

Those Fey demons better get on with it.

“What do you want?” Lancelot sneered, checking his knives - and his stomach dropped he realised he had none. They had taken them away when he was imprisoned - but something must have changed, because he was now wearing clothes, just a black shirt and pants, and it was such a small consolation, but Lancelot clung to the last remains of his dignity desperately.

His feet were still bleeding and dirty, though, and he could see the pinpoints where the roots must have pierced his skin - he didn’t know what for, and it made him a bit ill, but there were other things to worry about right now. He tore his eyes away from his ruined feet and looked around again, searching for any sign of someone’s presence. 

“Here,” he heard a soft, silver voice call out from behind his back, and twirled around to face a threat.

It turned out to be - an old, fragile-looking Fey man? Lancelot frowned. Did they really think so little of him as if to send their elders to interrogate him? Or did they think so highly they were willing to trust he wouldn’t hurt them? Well, they were in for a surprise - he never really liked old men.

“What do you want?” he repeated, trying to sound threatening. 

“You always ask that one,” the man remarked, a calm expression on his face that told Lancelot he was not nearly as intimidating as he hoped. He took a closer look at the man - short silvery hair, swaying softly as if the darkness was the wind, same silver in his eyes, though it was tarnished. And then remembered to speak.

“Well, it’s the one that matters.”

“Not now,” the elder contradicted - though, now that he looked closer, it was just the colour of his hair that confused Lancelot into taking him for a gaffer. The man was probably in his early forties, at most, only thin lines running down the sides of his mouth and sweeping under his piercing eyes. “We want to know what you want.”

You misunderstood, Lancelot thought, a bit disappointed. He only ever asked what someone wanted to give it to them in such a way they would not feel the poison before he could get to enjoy their faces.

“We didn’t. But it is considered polite to listen to the words only when we speak to your side.”

Lancelot felt as if the ground slipped under his feet - but then, there was no ground. 

“What is this place?” he asked, his voice suddenly hoarse.

“Yr ochr arall,” the Fey replied, and, at his lost look, clarified, “The Other Side”.

He just stared at him, trying to wrap his head around it. An itch in his hand was distracting, as it begged for a sword to hold, to ground himself. “What is its purpose?”

“Always looking for one, aren’t you?” the man huffed out with a wry smile. “There isn’t one, as far as I know. Maybe Danu knows,” he trailed off, and looked to the side with a faint frown, as if listening to something, but there was not a sound apart from them, “no, she is just as at a loss.”

Lancelot, for the first time in his life, felt as if he met someone more insane than him.

“Well,” he forced out after the man did not seem to hurry to fill the silence, “I am here for some reason.”

“We do use this place to meet those from the other side who caught our attention,” the madman nodded.

“Who is we?” Lancelot asked weakly.

“Well, let’s see - Dagda, Aengus, though he is just here to listen, and Bridig - she says she is happy to see you.”

_But I don’t see anyone_ , Lancelot thought, cold dread knotting his stomach, _why can I see anyone_.

“Don’t look so surprised. The fair folk chose our name for a reason.” 

“What do they call you?”

“The Hidden.”

Gods almighty, he thought, and immediately blushed. The man’s smile grew even wider, as he watched Lancelot flounder for a moment.

“But - what is your name?”

“Haven’t you guessed?” the man lifted a brow, surprised. “I am Aed.”

The Ashman’s blood ran cold, but then his heart rate picked up, racing it through his veins until it burnt. All the thoughts left his head - only the ringing silence remained. Which was just what he needed.

“Are there more?” he croaked out.

“Morrigan will be here soon, but that should be it.”

So, just the four. 

“Can they touch me?” he asked, shifting slightly, and the God of Fire frowned, but shook his head.

“Good,” Lancelot said, and decked the man.

Admittedly, it was not his best punch - he was still bone-deep exhausted, but it still landed with a satisfying thud on the man’s cheekbone, snapping his head back, splitting the skin - though no blood sprayed from the cut. 

Aed did not make a sound, just stumbled back, clutching at his face, just as Lancelot tried to take another step - but was yanked back by something that felt suspiciously like invisible roots around his feet.

“Gawain,” he said through clenched teeth, “Let me go. I don’t care if I die.”

Aed’s face shifted, as the god narrowed his eyes, looking at the straining, raging man in front of him.

“If he fails to hold you back, he will pay for it as well,” he said darkly, and Lancelot froze, abandoning his struggle against the roots.

“You wouldn’t,” he breathed out, staring in shock at the knight.

“I certainly wouldn’t,” Aed agreed grimly, “but Yr ochr arall has its rules. Green Knight is anchoring you to the world of the living, right now, and if you try to break it by force, the backlash of magic will most likely kill him.”

“Wait - living - so I am dead?”

Aed nodded, and Lancelot felt the fight go out of him, as he almost fell.

“I am not done - I need to go back,” he murmured.

The god was, thankfully, generous enough not to point out the contradiction to his previous declamation; instead, he stepped closer and reached out with hands, a careful, placating gesture.

“Calm down, Ashman, you still might. It was the only way for us to meet - and we do want to talk, after all. But first - why on earth did you hit me? Not that I am offended, far from it, impressive that you managed to hide your thoughts, but why?”

I didn’t hide them, Lancelot said sullenly, feeling undeserving of praise, I just had none. It was not a logical decision, he was just driven by…

“Revenge,” he said quietly. “I wanted to take revenge for what you did to my family.”

As he said it, it felt like all the strength seeped out of him completely, and he sank slowly on the ground - or what passed for it in this strange place, skies full of stars above his head and gray, smooth surface spanning indefinitely in all directions under his feet.

“Do you want me to beg for forgiveness?” he asked, looking up at the god, and moves “I will - just let me go back.”

“No, boy,” the man shook his head and stopped him by the arm, before tugging it back. “You are not to kneel again,” and then he winked, “unless it is by your choice.”

Trying not to think about the fact that the God of Fire just made a dirty joke at his expense, he got up and followed him, trying to see what the man was looking at - but for his eyes, it was only uncertain shadows, shifting and swaying like torn banners. They stood in silence for a bit, but then Lancelot remembered there was one more question he needed to ask.

“Lord Aed?” he asked quietly, and the man hummed questioningly. “Can you teach me how to use the Fey fire?”

“Not now,” the man murmured, stray locks of silvery hair fluttering in the gentle wind that Lancelot could, strangely, feel now as well. 

He frowned, glancing to the side - and the darkness stared back; his hackles rose at the strange feeling. Without a thought, he bared his teeth and could swear the darkness answered with a laugh - a silvery, feminine laugh. 

Trowing a look at the god at his side, he saw Aed wince.

“Ah, Morrigan. Kind of you to join us, at last.”

He said it in an even voice, but his face was pinched and the tense way he stood - it made Lancelot shiver when the darkness touched his shoulders again.

“Now, don’t scare the boy,” Aed gritted out, and the calm silver of his eyes flared up like fire - there and gone in a blink.

The darkness retreated, though he could feel, absurdly, that it was disappointed. If she was a woman, indeed, then he could almost picture a petulant pout on her blood-red lips.

“I am not scared of you, Lady Morgan,” he murmured and was immediately rewarded by a blinding smile - the one that twisted like a knife in his stomach, making him gasp, as the darkness leaned into his chest, clutched at his wrists, and then drew back, a dancing, flickering shadow.

“You’re not, are you?” Aed asked in a strange voice, setting his jaw and frowning, “But enough with the interlude - now that we are all here, let’s finally ask the question,” he turned to face the Ashman fully, crossing his arms, “Why do you want to go back, Lancelot?”

“To avenge my family,” he answered without a doubt and immediately saw it was the wrong answer, though the darkness - Morrigan - purred like a contented cat. Something flashed in the shadows behind Aed - a glint of white teeth, bared in a smirk, and he felt deep dread twist his stomach.

“You can’t lie to us, but we knew you would try - so I will ask again, Lancelot. Why do you want to go back?”

He felt like trying to catch an eel in dark waters, thoughts slipping out of his hands and scattering, as he frantically tried to think of a reason.

“To amend what I did.”

Aed’s face darkened, and his lips thinned, silver hair fluttering like tiny flames, as the darkness wept with silent laughter behind him. He truly did look like a god now - and a rather angry one at that.

“Last attempt, Lancelot. Why do you want to go back?”

Lancelot kept silent.

There were things he would not say, even if all the gods tortured him for eternity. 

Some things were more important than his pain.

“Forgive me,” the man said, “it is cruel of me to ask you to say it. Your folk have the belief that a spoken thought is a lie, don’t they? And with the life you had…” he trailed off, as Lancelot listened mutely. “Regardless - we know the answer.”

He closed his eyes briefly, trying to let go of the foolish hope, but it refused to let go. Guess they would go to hell together, then.

“You are free to go, Lancelot.”

“What? Why?”

“Are you dissatisfied?” the man asked unbelievingly.

“No - but - after what I did...”

“Indeed. Your fate was sealed before you knew you were making a choice.”

“So why even do all of this?” Lancelot asked, desperate.

For a moment, Aed’s face changed, a mask breaking in halves, a ripple running through it - and the features shifted, flickered through the faces unknown and long-forgotten, faces cherished and longed for.

“Maybe I just wanted to see you again.”


	5. The Tower

He came to himself again, gasping for air - but this time to an utterly mundane sight of a stone arched ceiling.

Twisting to the side, Lancelot retched, coughing out bile and water. In a minute, he finally stopped heaving for breath, and though his nose still stung horribly, he could glance around - at the straw-covered floor on which he laid, and narrow windows through which the dim afternoon light filtered in. Lancelot coughed again, rubbing at his throat - and his hands were free, not even the faint rope burn or chain links imprints left. He stared dumbly at the unharmed skin, noticing how it was healed, but not perfectly - spots of pale pink colour stretching over where the marks should have been. 

A creak of the door hinges snapped him out of his daze, and Lancelot looked up, having to twist awkwardly from where he was still on his stomach, straw stems clinging to his shirt and poking into his stomach where the fabric had ridden up.

Gawain froze, a towel in his hands, that he was apparently drying his hair with. 

“You’re awake,” the knight said, and Lancelot glared. “How are you?”

The Ashman propped up on his hands, trying not to show how badly they shook. He felt like a newborn foal, for god’s sake.

“Alive,” he croaked out, and winced as his throat complained, but continued, out of spite, “which is more than I expected.”

The knight huffed in amusement. “Well, if you are already snarky, means you must be feeling better.”

Lancelot was ready to protest, drawing the knight’s attention to the fact that he spat venom more often mixed with blood than not, but then realised he was, indeed, feeling alright. After a rocky awakening, his body seemed to remember its place. It felt as if he was a crumpled piece of parchment slowly spreading back out to its proper shape.

“Did your cock also heal my wounds?” he asked suspiciously. 

The knight guffawed in surprise, but then groaned and ran a hand over his face.

“No,” he said, “no, that had nothing to do with my cock. For once,” he added, and Lancelot bristled.

Their conversation was, however, rudely interrupted by the grumbling of his stomach. At the soft, amused smirk of the knight, he almost blushed - but then scoffed instead and got up.

“Can I eat something?”

“Of course,” Gawain gestured to the door, and he followed him outside, “You are free to go around the castle, after the trial. Just will have to wait with the weapons - but not long, I am working on it”.

Lancelot refused to admit he felt the warmth spread in his chest at the remark. No need to feed the Green Knight’s ego - though he was sure the man knew, anyway.

His musings were interrupted by the light sound of footsteps, and as they rounded a corner, a couple of young Fey women almost ran into them. They pressed into the wall, staring at him like mice at a cat.

“Why are they still looking at me like this?” he asked the knight lowly.

“You do have a reputation,” Gawain answered delicately, his expression calm as he nodded at one of the Feys and guided Lancelot further down the hallway.

“Yes, but it’s been a month since you found me, surely they should have gotten used to the idea?”

Gawain looked pained. “Lancelot,” he muttered, “do you know how fairy rings work?”

“Somewhat,” a sudden suspicion crawled into his mind, “They distort time - so you can come out decades later, but does it mean...”

“The other way around, as well. It’s only been a day for the others.”

Lancelot was silent for a moment and then shrugged.

“It is weird, but nothing to do with it now. Good that you didn’t tell them about us, I’d hate to look so easy.”

The knight snorted and raised hands in a placating gesture when Lancelot narrowed his eyes. “You are anything but easy, Lancelot,” he remarked, voice still warm.

He sniffled suspiciously, but then the smell of food drifted to his nose and Lancelot was gone.

The knight barely picked on the delicious dishes that the cooks immediately offered as they saw him come in. So, under their withering glares, Lancelot happily bit into every single one of them, tugging three plates closer at once with the greed of a child never well fed. 

By the time he was done, there must have been a significant dent in food supplies of the Fey. But Gawain just looked amused, shaking his head at the cooks as they inquired. It was getting late, and they retreated to finish their preparations for the dinner feast, leaving the two men in relative peace.

They sat in silence, Gawain waiting for him to finish the food. Finally, with a regretful sigh, Lancelot pushed the plate back.

“So what about the tower,” he asked, still holding a bird bone he had just picked clean.

“Now?” the knight lifted his brows in surprise.

“Why not?” he shrugged.

“Is that your way of not being easy?” Gawain teased, but then his expression turned serious, as he drummed his fingers against the tabletop. “You’re sure you are feeling well enough?”

“For you to fuck me?” Lancelot inquired serenely, “Oh, I don’t know. Maybe we should wait another month, see how it goes - what if I change my mind, right?”

“You know what I mean,” the knight warned tensely, not joining into the joke, and Lancelot dropped a smile.

“I do. I also know what I can take - what I want to take.”

The knight lifted his eyebrows, but after a short, intense moment, bowed his head slightly and stepped aside.

“If so,” he said, “let me take you there, then.”

Gawain did force him to go to take a bath - but they even had one in the castle, no need to venture all the way to the nearest river. Lancelot was a bit excited, to be honest, but despite his petulant pout, Gawain waited outside, hovering at the door. To make sure no one interrupted and startled the Ashman into a murderous fit - or at least that’s what he thought until he saw the bath. It was a copper monstrosity that, while perfect for inspiring awed terror, was so horribly uncomfortable, he hurried to deal with it as fast as he could and got out. Lancelot pattered over the floor, dripping water everywhere, still barefoot, which barely bothered him anymore, and, scarcely patient enough to towel off, joined the knight. 

\---

At the top of the tower stairs, they were both slightly out of breath - mostly because they were still recovering, but also because the tower was, probably, the tallest Lancelot had ever seen, either. 

When Gawain pushed the door open and walked in, he hesitated in the doorstep, taking the dim-lit, slightly chilly room in. It was just right, he thought giddily, eyes straying to the large bed, but then a noise caught his attention. The north wind howled outside the window, clawed at the cloudy old glass, trying to crawl in through the cracks - and Lancelot could feel its touch when his hair swayed slightly in the draft. 

“Open it,” he croaked out, but Gawain hesitated, “It wants in - let it.”

The knight’s eyes lingered on him, but then he nodded curtly and marched to the window to yank it open. The wind roared, a gust of it so strong as it pushed inside the room, that Lancelot had to squeeze his eyes briefly, and something fell to the floor and broke, but when he opened his eyes again, the light was pouring through the window.

“See?” he grinned weakly at the knight, who leaned against the window sill, strands of hair swaying in the gentle breeze, “It was curious.”

Shaking his head but failing to fight back an amused grin, Gawain puttered over and leapt into bed, landing with surprisingly little impact for a man of his build - though the frame still squeaked in the complaint.

They ignored it, too wrapped up in staring at each other. Lancelot shifted warily, with a slightly lifted chin and flaring nostrils, as Gawain crawled in between his legs, eyes hungry, grinning crookedly.

As the knight loomed over him, Lancelot looked up, a stormy, defiant expression on his face - that mirrored the darkening clouds on the horizon, that the wind was stubbornly tugging along like one would tug a boat onto a shore. He could almost see the ropes in the air, stretched so taut they were going to snap any moment - much like he.

But before any storm, there was always a moment of perfect stillness - and they had it now.

He skimmed his fingers down the side of Gawain’s face, marvelling at how soft the skin was there - a place of vulnerability on a man that seemed so often to be carved out of stone. Or rather, out of oak wood, Lancelot thought giddily and couldn’t help a dazed smile.

Gawain noticed and furrowed his brow uncertainly, though the corners of his lips already twitched in an answering smile.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

He obviously did not believe him - but it was alright; he was going to tell him all of that in a different way; the one that did not require words. For a word spoken was a lie, and that was one thing Lancelot knew deserved only the truth.

The thunder rumbled in the distance.

“It is for us,” he murmured in Gawain’s lips, and the knight hummed. 

“You think?”

“Sure of it.”

They both were so engrossed in each other, Lancelot suddenly uncertain and Gawain gently patient, that the next peal of thunder took them by surprise. The Ashman jumped, accidentally hitting the man in a stomach with his knee, and the knight groaned in pain, swore and fell on his back again to get away from the flailing mess of boney limbs that was Lancelot.

“Gods, fuck, I am sorry…” he blurted out, rushing to the man’s side and hovering anxiously above him. 

“Oh, shut up,” Gawain growled, opening his eyes, “no, you are not - and I don’t care - come here _now_ ”, and his voice sounded so dark and dangerous, that Lancelot immediately dove in.

The kiss was, predictably, more of a clash - all teeth and gasps and soft swears, but then, as the rain started outside, they found a rhythm. The sharp, aborted movements smoothened, became a steady, hungry flow of hands over the skin, as Gawain lifted his hands to run them over Lancelot’s back. He stroked over the ruined mess of skin like there was nothing wrong with it; but when Lancelot dared to open his eyes and take a look at him, the knight’s eyes were hard and clear, telling him the man did notice. He just really didn’t care, Lancelot realised, and that should not have surprised him, but it still did.

But the wind was howling for them, was urging them on, just as the light drizzle turned into a rain - and he threw all those thoughts, all the worry out of his head and leaned in again, pressing flush against the man’s chest, eager for the warmth and the steadiness that just meant Gawain in his head.

The knight did not hesitate to respond in kind, pulling him closer, until Lancelot felt like there was nothing between them, nothing at all to separate the two; yet he still fought back, slid his fingers between the strands of auburn hair and tugged, bit into the warm skin. The lightning struck outside, and he startled, but Gawain had enough of that.

“We are alone, and if anything, any force at all, tries to stop us, I will not let it”, he promised, eyes ablaze with a fierceness that could have rivalled that of the gods - he knew that now.

And so Lancelot believed him.

He gave in, and it felt like jumping into the water from a cliff - the shock of impact, the darkness closing over his head - but then Gawain twisted them around, and he broke the surface, gasped for air, high on the glorious feeling of being able to breathe again.

He rose on his knees and reached down the same time as Gawain did, their fingers entwining, and it only took a minute for the knight’s to join his; it burnt, despite their mixed saliva, a bit too much, but Lancelot did not slow. He was done waiting, and as the downpour outside lashed at the roof tiles and stones, he opened himself up for his knight with a heady fervour of a man first time experiencing love.

Because it was one, he knew without a doubt now, and even though none of them would ever say the words, Lancelot was the last of the Ash Folk, and it was the way his heart worked.

He kept silent, save for heavy breaths, as the knight looked at him, an oddly soft and hungry expression on his face, but couldn’t fight back an elated grin. Gawain answered it with a predatory smile of his own, taking himself in hand and slowly pushing it, his eyes not leaving Lancelot’s face as the Ashman’s hand clutched at his shoulder, an illusion of control that wasn’t an illusion at all.

But as Gawain leaned closer briefly, nuzzling in his neck, it seemed to break the dam. Short, strained gasps escaped Lancelot’s throat, and then, at the first serious thrust of the knight’s hips, he threw his head back and sucked a breath in. It didn’t help - the control was slipping out of his fingers, but he was sick of holding on it anyway - and he let go, a first real moan reverberating around the room. 

The rumbling of thunder, the barrage of rain could have covered his voice if he cared to do so - but he didn’t. He wanted the world itself to know he was alive; that despite all of what they did to him, he finally understood what happiness felt like. It was the litany of curses, and praises, and prayers so genuine in its abandon, the stones of the old tower blushed.

Throat hoarse from moans and cries, Lancelot exhaled sharply, allowing his body a break. The stray droplets of water landed on his back, sending a shiver down his spine, and as they slid down, a teasing caress, he knew what to ask for. He wanted to be fucking dripping with the knight’s seed, a blatant, nasty display of what he could do now.

He took a moment to choose the angle and then wrapped his legs tighter around Gawain’s and twisted, flipping them around. The man followed eagerly and immediately pressed back inside him, before Lancelot could lament the loss of touch.

“Need you,” he forced out, panting in the knight’s shoulder, “to remind me I am not there.”

The Fey nodded, catching his breath, and fuck, the way he was flushed all the way to his chest, hair dishevelled, eyes gleaming wildly in the darkness of the room - all at his hands.

“How do you want me to do that?” the man asked, just as hoarsely, even though Lancelot was the one screaming. Perhaps, he wasn’t the only one to forget where one of them began, and the other ended.

Lancelot collected himself and, after a short pause, told him. 

Gawain gave him that - and so much more. He branded his skin with eager, hungry bites, and cast out the ghosts from his mind with tender, desperate caresses; and this time, the soft keens and moans of the Ashman were only for the knight’s ears.

After, they stayed entwined together, Gawain breathing heavily as Lancelot slowly, absently rubbed circles into his back with his fingertips. The two laid in bed, and listened as the storm abated, the only sound left a silvery drip of water from the roof an old tower. 


	6. The Road

A week later, Lancelot finally got his swords back.

He was just coming to share the wonderful news with the knight, when he heard two voices come out of the archive room, and with little hesitation, pressed against the wall, concealed by the shadows, and listened.

“So in that forest - could you read his thoughts there as well?” asked a female voice.

He heard the knight sigh.

“Yes, I could. How else do you think I understood what he really was?”

... And that fucking hurt, Lancelot realized, absently touching his chest with fingertips, as if checking that there was no actual physical damage. 

There was none, but there was not any sense in beating around the bush also, so he steeled himself and, right after the woman left, sneaked into the door, shutting it behind. 

When Gawain looked up, startled at the thud, he almost swore. 

Lancelot leaned against the door, looking at him, his face unreadable - but oh, the way he straightened and rounded his shoulders, as if hit by something - by what he must have overheard, Gawain realised. 

“So - have you ever planned on telling me?” Lancelot inquired, voice and expression equally dark.

“No,” Gawain admitted, running a hand over his face. “I haven't, because there is nothing to tell. I lied.”

The Ashman still looked unimpressed, so he continued.

“I couldn't read your thoughts then, can't do it now, will probably never be able to, though Hidden knows it would make my life easier. But alas, I can't.” 

“Why lie, then?”

“Because I didn't want the others to panic when they realize that their knight in shining armour is not only gone head over heels for their scariest ghost - they can take it, everyone loves these stories - but worse, he can understand him without words.” 

It was, indeed, a difficult thing to comprehend, Lancelot admitted. But he would like to try to put it into words, if Gawain so liked to hear them. 

“So you lie about abusing my trust to avoid damaging your heroic image.” 

“Lance,” Gawain sounded like he was punched in the stomach, rising briefly from a chair, but he was not done.

“And you do it to protect both them and me.”

The knight was looking at him with wide, anxious eyes, but after a moment, he nodded. 

Lancelot walked over to him and propped his hip against the desk in a way he knew always made the knight get this longing, far away look in his face. 

It usually led to some truly mind-blowing sex, as soon as they were out of sight of the others. 

He just needed to say one more thing. 

“You're a good man, Gawain,” he started with a profound note in his voice, “but I am not. So if you ever try to read my thoughts, I will set you on fire.”

The Fey looked vaguely impressed. 

“You can think some really outrageous things and see if I react, if you are not sure?..” Gawain suggested weakly, pulling slightly back, but freezing when a strong hand shot out to grab at the back of his chair, as the Ashman leaned closer.

“Oh, I do think those,” Lancelot grinned predatorily, “But I think you can guess them without sorcery.” 

\---

“What is it, Lancelot,” the knight asked, putting away the book he was skimming through in search of some old potion recipe, “you have been staring at me for an hour.”

“I am thinking hilarious thoughts at you.”

“Is it working?” Gawain asked curiously, and Lancelot huffed.

“You tell me.”

He decided he would try the story about a carrot and a nun, and if that one did not work, then either Gawain did not have any sense of humour, which he knew not to be true, or he really wasn’t lying.

The silence stretched, but as Lancelot watched avidly, the man’s frown only deepened in concentration, as he silently read the text, his lips moving without a sound.

It was stupidly touching to see him like that.

“I tried to think nice ones, but you didn't react.”

“It's because I can't bloody hear them, Lancelot.”

“I figured that out, thank you.”

\---

The parchment laid on the desk like a noose, and Lancelot was determined to escape that one. In his experience, the best defence was, almost always, an attack, so he did not waste time waiting for the man to ask.

“You know I am never going to settle,” he declared.

“Mhm,” Gawain nodded absently, running a hand through his hair. “Well, damn - too bad, I really liked that house,” he sighed, reaching out for a goblet, 

“You are not going to argue?”

“Why would I?” the knight shrugged, “I am glad that you said it, I was afraid you would decide to make some stupid sacrifice.”

He was, actually, going to do just that for some time, before his natural spite - thought Gawain preferred to call it free spirit - had taken over. 

“I could,” he said, trying to sound haughty, but it came out all wrong, vulnerable and quiet, “you know I would not fight my way out of a cage if you were there, as well”.

“No,” the knight shook his head resolutely, a faint grimace of revolt at the thought, “I do not find pleasure in catching wild creatures and watching them wither away, Lancelot”.

He fell silent, unsure of what the ploy was. But as he waited for Gawain to say something, the knight just continued working, copying some text from one scroll to another and periodically checking the map of the Highlands. Lancelot looked between the haggard lines of his lover’s face and the thin lines of ink plotting the shoreline.

“How far is it from the sea?”

“I don’t - five fathoms?” Gawain leaned over the parchment, squinting at one of the lines. “Six.”

Lancelot hummed, crossing his arms. The silence stretched, only disturbed by the creak of the candle and the soft sound of Gawain breathing.

He grew to love that sound, Lancelot thought.

“Perhaps,” he said. “We can still have it. As, you know,” the Ashman hurried to explain at the knight’s sharp look, unable to face the happiness in green eyes. “a base - hideout. For when we go to the Vatican.”

“We are going to the Vatican?” Gawain asked, surprise clear in his voice.

“Yes. I have an old man to kill.”

The knight was silent for a bit, and then stood up.

“I’d better pack my swords then, I guess.”

And Lancelot, at that moment, felt as if he finally knew what it was like to make the right choice.

“When do we leave?” Gawain asked him, already tying the scrolls together and putting them away, in a strict order he had so that Nimue could find them easily.

“Tomorrow,” Lancelot decided, because he never wasted time when he could attack, and the Green Knight nodded.


	7. The Ship

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *kicks the door down, wearing sunglasses* I live!

Getting Goliath on board was a nightmare.

After the first dozen minutes of their standoff, Lancelot ended up practically hanging from the horse's reins, begging it to please, _please_ , just move already. Gawain, the heartless bastard that he was, stood to the side, wearing a serene expression on his face that only enunciated the embarrassing struggle the Ashman had to go through. 

“I did tell you it might be easier to find a horse there,” the knight remarked calmly, his arms crossed as he waited patiently for the situation to resolve itself — in one way or another, because it was starting to look more probable that the stallion would shove Lancelot into the water rushing around the sides of the ship, as impatient as the man himself to get started with their journey.

Lancelot yanked at the reins with a surge of viciousness he usually reserved for the full-blown sword fights, but his frantic effort did not bulge the massive beast in the slightest. 

“Goliath,” he said darkly, “is not a horse.”

“What is he then?” the knight asked with a hint of genuine curiosity in his voice as if he expected some mystical reveal. It wouldn’t, strictly speaking, be out of the realm of possibility for them, after what they had gone through. But in this case, the answer was brutally ordinary.

Goliath, Lancelot thought, was a stubborn, mulish asshole. 

But the words that left his mouth told the other truth. "He is a friend."

That gave the knight a pause, and then he nodded, his face growing serious. “Yes, I think we won't find a lot of those on the other shore.” 

“You might be surprised,” Lancelot murmured, his eyes gliding over the black skin of the horse, as he looked for a weaker place, a ticklish spot, anything, that could have made Goliath move.

“Oh,” Gawain sounded delighted, “you have connections?” 

Perhaps he should not have gotten the knight’s hopes up, he thought with something approaching guilt. At least he guessed so — recognising what exactly made his stomach churn this time was a process for Lancelot. He just kept discovering new emotions, absolutely baffled by their variety, and, frankly, quite drained from having to deal with all of them at once. However, the knight insisted that feelings did matter, so his usual strategy of covering them up until they exploded in a controlled — well, mostly controlled — burst of violence was deemed inadequate.

Their stupid sentiments were inadequate, Lancelot thought sullenly, as he murmured, answering the knight’s question, “Many.” 

The Green Knight’s eyes turned speculative. 

“With whom?” 

“Ashes, mainly,” he snapped, “Now, please, could you help me get Goliath on board?” 

It was as if the knight was just waiting for him to ask — another educational manoeuvre, probably, Lancelot thought grimly. He couldn’t understand why he would need to ask for help outright — the others were not blind, they saw the same things, and if they did not approach, it meant they did not want to. However, the current situation required immediate intervention from someone with an authoritative air — because the spectacle had attracted a small crowd on the docks, and Lancelot was pretty sure the betting pool they’d started was not in his favour. 

Of course, once Gawain touched Goliath’s mane, he quieted at once and followed them onboard with demure obedience of a well-raised noble girl. 

What a menace. 

“Why does he listen to you?” Lancelot asked, and there was not a hint of jealousy in his voice, there _wasn’t._

“Not sure,” the knight answered with a dismissive shrug, “Animals just do it these days.”

Curious, Lancelot clarified, “All of them?”

“I only saw horses and dogs,” the knight paused. “And a cat once.”

Well, the obedience of the former was hardly indicative of any magical powers — most of them, especially shaggy fanged strays, already adored Gawain and would have stepped on a hedgehog to make the knight happy; but the latter...

“Did it listen?” he perked up, habitually throwing his head back to get the hood out of his eyes as they stopped next to the place the sailors hesitantly allotted for their only four-legged passenger.

“No,” Gawain answered with a defeated shake of his head, and then added, sourly, “scratched me bloody.”

Impressed, Lancelot was torn between finding the animal to express his respect and tearing its claws out for touching his knight. Only he was allowed to draw Gawain’s blood. 

A clarifying inquiry had to be made to seal the cat’s fate.

“How old was it?” Lancelot asked, securing the knot on Goliath’s reins with quick, deft movements.

“Mhm? A kitten. Pym brought one.” 

He will let it live, Lancelot decided, and finished tying the knot. But maybe pay it a visit to talk about manners. 

Apparently, he had become too transparent, as Gawain huffed in amusement. “You look so affronted, I hate to think the kind of reprimand paladins would receive for laying a finger on me,” he noticed breezily.

Oh no, there it was much easier. He would just tear their spines out. Lancelot was going to say that — the knight was remarkably unfazed by his homicidal tendencies — however, he remembered about the sailors scurrying around in preparation for departure and adjusted his answer. “I can kill them.”

Gawain scoffed. “But not a kitten?” 

Taking the saddle off Goliath’s back and putting it safely away, Lancelot hesitated with his reply. There was this recently forming part of him that tugged at his mind like an annoying child would at their warden’s sleeve as if trying to make him listen, but he did not understand a word of it. Going with a wild guess at what the uncomfortable feeling meant, he mumbled: “Pym would be upset.” 

And, oh no, the knight’s face turned that familiar shade of pensive that meant Lancelot did something that required another conversation about his feelings. 

“Would it upset you as well then, to see her sad?”

Desperately searching for the words to describe the situation in full but also cut it short, Lancelot forced something completely jumbled up out. “Probably. She is loud then. It's... frustrating.”

The knight sighed quietly — and it was not really surprising, that sound he resorted to quite often when the words escaped him, but Lancelot’s heart still sank. “What? What did I say?”

“Nothing, Lance.”

“No, but you sighed,” he insisted with a stubborn frown.

“Mm. Was it frustrating?”

Lancelot jerked his chin up and narrowed his eyes. “Yes.” 

“I see,” Gawain replied in an even voice, his face betraying nothing as he shifted to the side to let one of the sailors go between them, a heavy sack of something smelling like herbs clutched in the man’s hands. Following the Man Blood with his eyes for a moment, Lancelot did not determine any threat — and turned back to the knight.

“Is that about compassion again?”

“You don't sound impressed.”

Brushing his fingers off the tiny black hairs, Ashman straightened. “I told you I have none.”

A dark cloud ran over Gawain’s face. “And I told you you are wrong, but we don't have time to argue about it again — let's go find the captain.” 

The captain turned out to be a bald, short — almost dwarfish — fellow with so many creases on his face he more resembled a dried plum than a human. His most noticeable feature was, in Lancelot’s opinion, the fact that the man was a proud owner of the most majestic bird the Ashman has ever seen. Or, judging by the way the man kept glancing anxiously at the huge, colourful and menacing-looking macaw, perhaps it was the bird who was an owner of the captain. 

Lancelot was stunned and immediately charmed, glueing himself to the parrot’s side as the men talked. Letting their speech wash over him, he hesitantly reached out to brush his fingers against the rainbow feathers; when the bird ruffled them a bit, he paused and cast it a cautious glance. Encouraged by the bird’s calm gaze, he ran his palm up, under the beak. The tiny feathers were softer, he noticed, and for some reason, it excited him a bit; he reached out to prod at them, and at first, the macaw did not react, but then—

—it bloody _bit_ him. 

Its beak closed around his finger, sending a jolt of sharp pain up his arm, and he hissed softly, yanking his hand back so fast that the bird followed it, intent on gnawing at Lancelot as if it was a hungry dog. The men did not seem to notice their struggle yet, and he tried to shake it off, but it stubbornly kept holding. In a move dictated by pure despair, Lancelot reached out to grab the parrot by its neck and pry it off.

Once its beak came off his hand, taking a bit of skin with it, the bird immediately screeched, flapping its wings—he tried to hold it back, but only ended up gripping its neck tighter, in an attempt to both prevent it from either biting him again or overturning what looked like an expensive glass flagon full of ember, sharp-smelling liquid.

“Lancelot?”

Startled, he looked up, the bird still dangling from his arm, to see both men stare at him with equally intense, albeit differently coloured expressions. Gawain looked apprehensive and a bit tired; if they were in private, Lancelot imagined he would be pinching the bridge of his nose or rolling his eyes, but with the captain in here, the knight just pursed his lips and frowned. The dwarf, in his turn, looked equal parts shocked and wary.

With a strained apology, he carefully lowered the bird, which by then went a bit limp, back on its pillow. A short, awkward pause followed, as Lancelot eyed the knight and the captain, his shoulders guiltily pulled to his ears, and they stared back. Finally, Gawain broke the silence.

“Forgive my companion, captain,” he began, “He is still adjusting to peace, I can guarantee it would not...”

“No, no,” the captain interrupted quickly, raising his tiny hand, “I was actually wondering if you could do it again sometime during the journey. Pazzalio here absolutely lost any modicum of respect.”

As he nursed his bleeding finger, Lancelot severely doubted the feathered menace knew anything about respect in the first place. 

“I don’t think it would like it,” he muttered, glancing at the bird, that seemed to regain its strength a bit and now glared at him with an absolutely murderous look in its tiny, unmoving eyes. For some reason, it sent a shiver down Lancelot’s back.

Gawain sighed, but when he darted a look at him, the man now looked amused and tired, instead of tense and tired, so that was an improvement. 

“I can try to spell your bird to calm down.”

The dwarf’s eyebrows shot up as he gaped, “You can do it?”

“Yes. Fey magic. Any problem with that?” the knight inquired, crossing his arms and squaring his shoulders a bit—not it appeared to be necessary, as the dwarf shook his head without hesitation.

“Not at all. But tell me — does it work, by chance,” the captain said with poorly concealed, hopeful calculation, “on foolish men?”

“Alas,” Gawain shook his head, “it doesn't. I’ve tried.”

The dwarf sighed mournfully and seemed to succumb to a melancholic mood, which only deepened as something heavy thudded on the outside, followed by an outburst of cries and curses. Glancing at the door simultaneously, the Fey exchanged quick looks and then Gawain cleared his throat. “Well—seems like we should not distract you anymore.”

Waving his hand at them dismissively, the captain slumped back into the velvety, old armchair for a moment. Then, he resolutely pulled himself up, and went outside, to bellow at the top of his lungs, inquiring what in the seven hells happened this time. The Fey followed him.

Diving back into the light of day and squinting around, Lancelot got a bit disoriented and distracted by the commotion around a dropped piece of cargo. His eyes darted from one man to another to ensure nothing threatening was going on; but then Gawain caught his elbow and gently tugged him aside, paving their way through the crowd.

“Who did you try it on?” he asked him, “And where are we going?”

“Many people,” came a curt reply, “and myself. To look at the sea — you wanted to, no?”

Lancelot almost fell over himself, stretching his neck to try and see the horizon behind the jumble of ropes; stepping over the ropes coiled tightly on the deck, he quickly strode over to the side of the ship, feeling how his heart leapt to his throat at the wonderful sight.

He clutched tightly at the sun-warmed wood to restrain the surge of emotions and greedily took in the view. The wide open sea evoked such a strong wave of excitement that it almost suffocated Lancelot for a heartbeat, but then it settled into awe. The dark water was gilded by late afternoon sun - they still had several hours before sunset, and it should have been enough to get from Torquay to the shores of Brittany. They had to tread carefully to avoid alerting the Church to the Green Knight’s advancement towards the continent; not to mention how easy it was to recognise the former Weeping Monk. Even though he hid his face behind the scarves when in towns, someone could still put two and two together. Hence, smaller ports and a brig that screamed _smugglers_.

But it was nothing, because now Lancelot looked at the sea and inhaled its lovely, intoxicating scent. It was everything he wanted for a long, long time, and excitement thrummed under his skin so strong Lancelot felt as if the sparks filled his lungs and ran down his ribs. Even the dark clouds of what was going to meet them on the other shore broke a little. Sighing happily, he leaned against the railing. Out of the corner of his eye, Lancelot saw Gawain follow him; there was a small, but genuine smile on the man’s face, and he felt his lips twitch in one, as well. 

Even if they were going to die on the other shore, at least the way there was going to be glorious. 

\---

Alas, fate, once again, played a cruel joke on Lancelot, as it turned out that he suffered from horrible, relentless seasickness.

He was so sick the first hour he was not sure he remembered anything but the gentle, horrible sway of water.

The second, he dragged himself out of the cabin driven by sheer spite and propped his elbows up at the wooden boarding to peer at the sea. It was still swaying, the murmur and hiss of water all around him. The waves were gentler now, and he was feeling somewhat optimistic — but within two minutes of looking at them, the familiar roiling feeling rose in his stomach. For God’s sake, he moaned inside, hurrying back to the trusted bucket that he made a rather close acquaintance with in the last hours.

In the third hour, Lancelot changed his tactic. Or that's what he told Gawain to avoid saying that he admitted defeat from what was essentially just some water, no matter how vast, menacing and majestic it looked like.

The knight was not doing much better that evening, albeit for a completely different, much merrier reason. Drunk as a lord, he was sitting next to Lancelot who hugged the bucket with the resigned calm of a man who did not expect anything from life anymore.

Leaning his head back against the wooden railing, Lancelot greedily sucked some chill night air; it granted him enough clarity of mind to speak up. “Why did you drink?”

“Their treat,” Gawain explained with a blissed-out, vacant expression as if it was a good enough reason to get wasted on the ship. 

Lancelot, however, knew there was one weakness Green Knight possessed, and sighed. “Couldn't come up with a polite no again?”

“No,” he admitted sheepishly. “I mean, I could, of course, but it looked like I was going to break some sailor custom, and from what I saw before, those are no laughing matter. So I thought it's better not to aggravate the men who can actually guide this tub where we need to be. Or where we needn’t, if we do make them angry, I wouldn’t have a way to stop them.”

He frowned and muttered, slowly, each word coming out with effort, as he fought off another spell of seasickness. “It's not a tub. It's a ship,” he took a shuddering inhale. “A beautiful, _wonderful_ ship.”

The knight made a strained noise as if he tried to force down a chuckle and ended up choking a bit, but quickly recovered. “As long as it makes you feel better, we can say that.”

“Thank you. It is appreciated,” Lancelot said with entirely too much feeling. He very nearly teared up, for gods’ sake, a stinging sensation in his eye threatening to spill out if the next wave would hit just a bit harder. Even the words just voiced - it was unlike him to be so sentimental. Must have been the alcoholic fumes drifting off the knight’s skin, he reasoned.

Gawain shot him a pitiful look and reached out to tuck a stray lock of hair behind his ear. Not that it helped significantly, as the wind and the salt knotted Lancelot’s curls into an absolute mess that was easier to cut off, then untangle; but it did feel nice, and he hummed contently. “You can still just swim. Or stay on the shore and enjoy the view.”

“Have you ever known me to stay on the shore?” he scoffed softly, fidgeting a bit to press imperceptibly closer. The breeze was picking up, after all, it's cold gusts getting under his collar.

“No. But I haven't known you that long,” Gawain pointed out, slumping a warm, heavy arm around his shoulders. “Though I bet if I left you on the shore, you would find the highest cliff and jump off it. Just because you would think it is challenging you with its height.”

Lancelot considered the scenario carefully. “It does sound like something I would do.”

“I knew it,” Gawain mumbled happily and drew him closer, planting a quick, sloppy kiss on his hair before getting up. The man was swaying on his feet from both the sea and the rum, but it did not deter him in the slightest.

“If you fall overboard, I am not going to jump after you,” Lancelot informed him primly, clutching his bucket tighter to his chest as another wave hit the board, but the knight just laughed, not bothering to turn around.

“Of course you won't. I wouldn't dare to hope.”

He nodded and frowned, even though Gawain couldn’t see him anymore. There it came again, that tug in his stomach, but as another hit of nausea came, Lancelot squeezed his eyes shut and decided to refrain from analysing his internal turmoils any further.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Behind the scenes: Lancelot fights a seagull; if he could, he would also climb up the masts, but alas.
> 
> edit: fixed a bug with the timeframe, thank you, SuperLizard, for finding it :)


	8. The Ashes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OST: Lord Huron - Way Out There [youtube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NtmbXANVRhc)
> 
> Warning: there is some very mild blood & gore in this chapter.

_I'm a long way from the land that I left_  
_I've been running through life and cruising toward death._  
_If you think that I'm scared you've got me wrong_  
_If you don't know my name, you'll know it now_

_  
If you think that I've changed, you know me not  
I belong bodily to the earth  
I'm just wearing old bones from those that came first  
I been unraveling since my birth._

When they had finally set foot on shore, he immediately fell in love with the sea again. His nose was full of the gentle, intriguing scent of salt, that promised adventure and freedom and fuck he was stalling, his ankles slowly sinking into the sand as the waves crept closer and closer. 

“You haven’t changed your mind, right?” Gawain asked from behind as he roped the boat ashore, slightly to his left, and Lancelot did not turn around when he cheerfully answered: “Not in the slightest, no.”

“Is it because of the ship?” guessed the knight, letting go of the rope and turning around to peer at the same high cliffs. He had to throw his head back a little, and there was a hint of appreciation in his expression that made Lancelot simultaneously proud and jealous.

“Yes,” he said finally, tearing his eyes away and taking the first step, water and sand quickly filling the indent left by his boot.

 _It’s because_ _I’d_ _rather die in a fight than bent over the board._ He didn’t say it though, striding away with his head held high, even if his steps were a bit quicker than usual.

He could hear the knight huff out a laugh and follow him, and his heart, after it had stopped beating for a moment, raced again.

The Vatican wouldn’t know what hit them.

\---

They ran into paladins within an hour.

There were not even many of them; just two, a laughable number was he in his usual light-headed state of awareness – but Lancelot, feet finally on home soil, was so taken aback, he faltered an attack and then missed a few hits. The stinging slice across his forearm had him falling on the defensive briefly before he grew furious and, at long last, snapped.

The blood lust took over like a tidal wave, ruthless in its inevitability. Sometimes he wished he had a choice, but it was an idle dream that he had grown out of toying with around seven years ago. He was twenty, not that anyone needed to know that. 

That guy was probably not much older, Lancelot thought, as he stood above the freshly departed paladin and tried to catch his breath.

“It’s alright, it’s alright, we can still make it,” he kept thinking over and over and, judging from the worried glance of the man at his side, saying out loud as well. 

Gawain was mostly unharmed, only a small gash on his arm that was already scabbing over. Which was good, because it was too late for Lancelot to take any prisoners to whom he could have explained in detail why harming the green knight was not something they wanted to try ever. 

Blood and sweat kept running down his forehead into his eyes, so he wiped them off absently, but ended up smearing it all over his face, like a child who took a dive in a jar of jam. The taste was far, far from pleasant, though. At the touch of the salted copper to his tongue, he winced, gagged a bit and was going to spit it out; but at that moment, his eyes caught on the small red figure _moving rapidly away._

“Gawain,” he blurted, “one escaped.” 

The knight’s eyes leapt at once to where he was looking – it was too far, Lancelot realised with growing horror, he wouldn’t catch up before the man reached the small watch tower. Frantically, he looked around for a bow, but of course, the paladins only had the short swords with them. 

The red figure, in the meantime, had almost reached the edge of the woods. 

At the thought of what one word of their arrival would do to their plans, Lancelot felt sick. 

“Gawain,” he yelled, “do something!” 

The green, wary eyes flickered to him briefly, and he saw the knight blink a couple of times as he hesitated, but when Lancelot swore dirtily and hauled himself up in the saddle, intent to give chase even if it was pointless, Gawain dropped to one knee. 

“Wait,” he demanded sharply, “I’ll do it.” 

Glancing between him and the paladin, who was passing past the first trees, Lancelot opened his mouth to ask what exactly the man wanted to do, but then he felt something and wavered. 

It was a hum, like the distant swarm of bees, only it radiated from the knight now. It filled the air gradually, rising in pulsing waves, and it raised the hairs on the back of his neck, this primal invisible force that rolled under the sun-kissed skin and seemed to heat the very air around Gawain, making it shimmer. 

Shutting his mouth with an audible click, Lancelot swallowed thickly and watched with wide eyes how the green rose from the palms Gawain had pressed against the ground, how it crept up, following the ridges of his protruding veins. At the creaking groan behind him, Lancelot turned around - just in time to see the red figure be swept off its feet by a swaying branch of a huge oak tree, and then he urged the grey horse into a gallop. 

The branch that was wrapped around the man’s waist drew back a bit, when Lancelot rode closer. The paladin jerked in a struggle to reach the tower – he was barely a dozen steps away from the bottom of stairs. The single ring of the bell on top of it would have been enough to alert the abbey Lancelot knew was nearby, and the idea of what that would do to their plan made his mind go blank.

However, he stayed his hand before he could behead the man. Instead, he leapt out of the saddle, landing on the sure feet and strutted over, vicious satisfaction curling in his stomach at the sight of the paladin cowering now in between the oak roots. That was another mistake, because their swarming mass seemed to reach out for him, latching onto the clothes to hold him in place, all laid out just for Lancelot to feast on. 

He fell upon the man like a bird of prey. Pinning him to the ground with a blade through his robe, just shy of the skin, or maybe just enough to tease it apart, Lancelot crouched down. 

“Next one will go in,” he promised cheerily and pulled out a hunting knife tucked in his belt.

“I - I won’t tell anyone,” the man stammered out, still struggling to get away, but his attempts were promptly thwarted by the steel laid flat right under the hinge of his jaw.

“It doesn’t matter,” Lancelot informed him, voice laden with ice, and rotated the blade just a bit, to see if it will draw blood already. It didn’t, and he sighed softly in disappointment. 

“I know things…”

“Everyone does,” he shrugged, and pressed the knife a bit more; this time the first red bead rolled down the steel, mesmerisingly slow making its way to the edge. The paladin twitched, but it only served to deepen the cut, not that it stopped him from opening his mouth again.

“The Ash Fey!” he cried out, growing frantic with despair - it was as obvious from the shift in his scent as it was from the contorted face. “You’re one of them, right?”

“So what?” Lancelot bristled with a frown but made sure the tip of the knife stayed where it was.

The tentative relief spread over the paladin’s face, which made him shift uneasily, as it was completely unfounded. “Their village - what is left of it - there is a relic there,” the man confided in a conspiratorial voice.

 _What is left of it,_ Lancelot thought, and his rage flared up so hot, it turned cold. 

“What relic,” he forced out, voice distorted with tension gripping at his throat, even though his hand stayed steady, the blade not moving a hair. Some of the anger must have been reflected in his face, though, because the look of relief vanished from the Man Blood’s face.

He renewed his frantic attempts to negotiate – and squirm away from the knife. “A book – I can show you. The Abbott said it is important – it was his idea, I just – I beg you, have mercy.”

“Did you?”

The paladin ceased his struggling and breathed out a hesitant “what?”

Lancelot paused, considering whether he should just cut his throat right now, but the strange tug in his chest made him elaborate: “Did you have mercy when you came for my people?”

“I wasn’t - I wasn’t even there.”

“Is that your only excuse?” wondered Lancelot, before he tilted his head, adjusted the grip on the knife and added: “You’re lying, anyway.”

“No - I am not, I swear I will help you find it,” the man’s voice rose to a shriek when the blade lodged itself into his clavicle, carefully avoiding the arteria that would excuse him out of this conversation too early, “stop, please!”

“I scent it, you idiot.”

The paladin’s eyes were glossy with fear by this point, even less left of a human in them than before. “What,” he panted, face scrunched up in pain, “what?..”

Lancelot glanced away, keeping the pressure on the knife steady. “Do you know who I am?” he asked quietly.

“The - The Weeping Monk?..” the man guessed in such a pathetic voice – he was like a child who had not learnt his lesson well and was trying to guess the right answer as the teacher looked at him sternly, already tapping the palm of one hand with a scourge. 

Lancelot shifted his shoulders slightly and pulled back a bit, looking at the man thoughtfully for a moment before slowly leaning back in, drawing a strained gurgle out of the paladin’s throat. Almost gently, he pushed on the pommel, carving deeper into the man’s chest. When his hand shot out in an attempt to fight him off, he caught it and twisted sharply, breaking the bone like a twig.

“Yes,” he confessed, ignoring the anguished wail; his eyes followed the blood that spilt over the fleshy lips and ran down the weak chin. “That’s me. The Monk smells Fey – that’s who he is. But I also smell other things; lies as well.” 

He drew the knife back, and then plunged it again at a different angle, piercing right under the ribs; with a blank face, he twisted it in deeper and watched the life bleed out of the man’s eyes, felt it trickle down his hand – hot, pulsing and rather unpleasant. 

“It’s a terrible fucking scent,” Lancelot muttered under his breath, just loud enough for the two of them to hear and not for the oak tree. “I hate it.” 

He always found it easier to confess to soon to be dead men. That’s why he had sought out Gawain back then...

Fuck, _Gawain_.

Only now Lancelot noticed the roots had stopped moving, and when he saw the red that seeped into their fibers, he felt his stomach flip uncomfortably, and rushed to the horse. Without a glance back, he scrambled up, blood stained hands sliding on the reins - good thing the animal barely needed it, spinning around with barely a neigh before it carried him back to the knight. 

When they were still twenty paces away, Lancelot saw Gawain go down.

With a choked cry, he slid off the horse’s back in a way that, had he been a bit less agile, would have ended up with his broken neck. His knees collided hard with the ground when he fell next to the man, hands running hectically over the dark gambeson, seeking the wound. There was none, and when Lancelot finally remember to inhale, there was no scent of his blood either. 

Confused, he frowned and shook the man by the shoulder, calling out his name. When after the two attempts there was still no reply, his voice broke; but even though the knight was deathly pale, he was still breathing, and his pulse, weak as it was under Lancelot’s fingertips, did not seem to wane.

“Gawain? Gawain!” he tried again; this time, the man’s eyes moved back and forth under his eyelids, then his lashes fluttered, and finally, he drew a sharp breath in – and immediately choked on air, coughing violently. 

“Gawain, gods – are you alive?” Lancelot frantically questioned, as he gripped at the man’s shoulders while he tried to sit up. Caught in between wanting to embrace him and shake him so that he would never scare him like that again, he gripped too tight, and Gawain shook with another coughing fit.

“I - will be,” he wheezed, “if you – let me – go...”

With an offended noise, Lancelot fell back and blinked rapidly, staring at Gawain with wide, wild eyes.

“Wha - what happened?” he croaked out, eyes dragging sluggishly around, taking in the scene – the red-clad bodies, the spooked horses, the panicking man next to him. Colour was slowly returning to the knight’s face, and his breathing evened out, but before Lancelot could calm down, Gawain winced and bent to the side, spitting out blood.

It landed in the road dust, the ugly blotch of bright red, and Lancelot froze, staring at it as if it was a snake; then he surged forward, pressing his hands back against the padded dark fabric, ready to rip it apart to get to the hidden injury.

“Lance - Lancelot! Stop it - I am _fine_ ,” Gawain cried out, catching his hands and wrangling them away before he could tear the garment. Lancelot drew back, eyes darting between his hands, still clutched in the iron grip and the green eyes that were, he had to admit, as lucid as ever. However, something was obviously horribly wrong.

“You’re not fine,” he forced out, voice quivering like a leaf in the hurricane. It was his turn to be ghostly pale. “You’re not fucking fine, you just – collapsed – and there is blood – where is the wound?”

“Nowhere - I am not wounded,” repeated Gawain, and then tugged at the front lacing to loosen it a bit, allowing a peek at the pristine white shirt. “See? Go on - check, just don’t destroy my only clothes, alright?”

Lancelot nodded impatiently and reached out with trembling fingers, hurriedly unlacing the rest and yanking the collar of the gambeson open – a bit too sharp, judging from the way Gawain winced, but he could not help it. Hurriedly, he ran his hand across the man’s chest, patted the firm, perfectly unharmed muscles, slid his fingertips over the smooth, warm, unbroken skin, and finally pulled back.

“Alright,” he breathed out and inhaled shakily. “I guess you are fine.”

“I am damn fine,” Gawain muttered under his breath, wiping the blood-specked saliva off his chin and then huffed out weak laughter when Lancelot shoved at his shoulder. “What happened? How long was I out?”

“Just a couple of minutes,” Lancelot replied and fidgeted under the unimpressed stare. “I couldn’t find what was wrong, and you were not reacting,” he muttered, barely audible, and then frowned, looking away in shame.

Gawain sighed, reaching out to press a warm, rough palm against the side of his face, and Lancelot nuzzled into it half-heartedly, still refusing to meet his eyes, but at least he let his features soften.

“Are _you_ alright?” the knight said emphatically, gently urging him to tilt his head, and with an annoyed mewl, he obliged. “You’re covered in blood – have you caught that paladin? Did he harm you?”

“He did,” absently nodded Lancelot, before frowning again. Why did he say it?

Gawain let out a soft hum, the one he immediately classified as distressed, even though to the ears of the most the difference with the sarcastic and the disbelieving ones would probably be too subtle. “Do you need stitches?”

“What?” perplexed, Lancelot scowled. Then his expression grew sheepish as he glanced at the blood-soaked sleeves and the splatter of red across the front of his tunic. “Ah – no. No, it’s… it’s not mine.” In a last-ditch attempt to avoid the distressed and vaguely disapproving expression that was already creeping on the knight’s face, he blurted out: “It’s done, doesn’t matter, I’ll wash it off - why did you faint?”

Gawain fixed him with a stern look that promised they were going to talk about it later, probably at length; definitely, yes, Lancelot realised with a dejected sigh. However, for now Gawain let it go and instead mused over the question, a frown pulling his brows together.

“I am not sure,” he admitted hesitantly, “I think it might have been – because of how I called to that tree?”

Lancelot glanced at the oak, under which the small red – a bit more red now – figure was slumped like a broken puppet. “How is it different from any other tree?”

“It’s further than the ones I usually ask to help,” Gawain’s expression grew pensive, hazel eyes narrowed in thought. Slowly, he pushed off the ground, hands pressing hard against the grey dust – Lancelot watched him silently. He didn’t move, as if he himself would not appreciate anyone smothering him with unprompted assistance.

“Your witch did it at this distance, though,” he noticed, as he got up as well and moved towards the horses. They were not pure-bred ones, and their eyes were still gleaming white with fear, as they cautiously sniffed at his bloodied fingers, but they seemed to calm down once Gawain whistled quietly. What a horse-whisperer, Lancelot thought with a pang of jealousy, and caught the reins firmly. It would be nice to unload Goliath a bit.

“She’s not mine - why does everyone say it? Anyway. Nimue has a sword to focus the power. I have to weave it together myself, and it’s – never mind.”

Lancelot paused where he was patting at the grey horse’s neck. “I am listening.”

But Gawain just shook his head and brushed his clothes off before bending over to pick up the sword. “‘S fine,” he said, rubbing the blood off the blade with a handful of roadside weeds. “I’ll tell you when I know for sure. Let’s head back.”

They walked for a short while, the thrills of the birds ringing in sweet early summer air around them before Lancelot broke the silence.

“I am never leaving Goliath again.”

Gawain chuckled, patting the muzzle of the bay horse he led by the reins, an easy, affectionate gesture that seemed to make the horse like the man even more. If it was even possible. “He needed it. Seems he takes after his master when it comes to seasickness.”

“Doesn’t matter,” Lancelot insisted. “He can suck it up, too. No more walks.”

The knight eyed him with an unreadable expression.

“Even when we stay the night in the inns?” he clarified.

Eyes following the sparrows that darted in the air from under their feet, Lancelot shrugged. “I can sleep in the stables.”

The declaration was met with a brief, but pointed silence.

“I’m not sleeping with you there,” Gawain muttered finally under his breath, tugging at the bay’s reins to stop it from gorging on a bramble bush.

“Why not?” he frowned. “It’s soft enough and warm, and the smell isn’t even that bad…”

“Lancelot,” began Gawain with a long-suffering sigh. “I am not – bedding you next to Goliath. He is judging me enough as it is. Not to mention that the stable boys do not deserve this.”

Lancelot chewed on his lip, frown deepening, and clenched his fingers tight around the reins. “I am not that bad – am I?” 

“No,” reassured Gawain, then caught his hand, and pressed dry, firm lips to the back of it. “But if you are the first man they see and then they try to measure everyone up to you, poor sods are going to die unsatisfied.”

Flustered and maybe a bit flushed, Lancelot looked away, and half-heartedly pulled his hand back, briefly cradling it against his chest.

“I think it would be you,” he mumbled. “I think they would die unhappy because of you.”

Gawain paused for a moment, his face scrunching up, but then he relaxed.

“This is very sweet. Thank you.” 

Lancelot’s eyes darted to him, and a crest-fallen look crossed his face. “You sound – I said it weirdly again, didn’t I?”

The knight gave him a wry smile, eyes gleaming with warm mirth, and leaned over to nip at the shell of his ear. 

“A bit. Good thing I understood you anyway.”

Fighting back a shiver, Lancelot scoffed and glanced down, studying the almost completely dried blood. Mixed with grey road dust, it covered his hands like rust and reminded him of the wheezing halting words of the man it belonged to.

“That paladin said they were looking for something – a book. Didn’t say more.”

Gawain arched his brow in a sceptical look. “Did he have a chance?”

“That’s unfair – enough for a bite,” warned Lancelot with a fierce frown. It was his form of restoring justice, that was usually met with a lot of swearing but ultimately proved to be very efficient. He tried to moderate it, but sometimes Gawain just drove him up the wall with his infallible sufferance.

“You can certainly try,” came the reply.

The ensuing fumbling forced the horses to miss a step and snort in annoyance, sending disapproving sideways glances to the men, who were caught up somewhere in between fighting and embracing. From the side of the darker human, there were definitely more sharp gleaming teeth involved then the horses were generally comfortable with, but it did not seem to deter the friendly one much. He just gave a laugh and let the other sink his jaws into his neck, leaving behind a row of deep red indentations.

With a contented sigh from someone’s side, the men broke apart, and the rest of the way back was spent in amiable silence, filled only with an uproar of sparrows in the roadside bushes.

\---

They paved the winding streets of the desolate town in respectful silence. Well, it was so for Gawain, as he looked around the ashes, unease creeping up his spine at the feeling of the frozen time. Lancelot just seemed speechless, staring around with an expression of stunned awe he had not had even after coming back from the dead. 

Perhaps, now that the long-buried memories were unearthed, that small child, the one Gawain knew was there even if the man himself was adamant about denying it – maybe he awoke, as well. Lancelot certainly looked younger right now, as his wide eyes darted from one house to another. Most of the roofs had long since rotted and collapsed, and the walls were slowly crumbling, as well; long ivy tendrils crawled up them, clinging to every crevice. 

Glancing at Lancelot, Gawain saw that he was looking at those as well. A barely noticeable ripple ran over his features – like an echo of a far-away avalanche on the water of the glacial lake. The expression of disbelieving, cautious hope waned slowly, erased by the gentle, ruthless fingers of the warm southern wind blowing in their faces. 

Eyes still glued to the overgrown walls, Lancelot did not even seem to realise he took a deeper breath, as his nostrils flared, and he swallowed thickly. There was more to it than merely tasting the air, Gawain realised. He could not very well distinguish what scents the wind had brought, but he knew which ones it hadn’t.

There was no smell of smoke from the kitchens, no scent of freshly baked bread, or the soap from the laundry drying in the yard. There was only the delicate fragrance of summer flowers and the sharp musk of their horses. The birds sang around them, jubilant and undisturbed, and Lancelot’s face grew colder and colder.

There was no time to choose the words – the man was teetering on the brink of shutting down, and that did not bode well for anyone. Any attempt at consolation was likely to meet armed resistance, but something had to be said as quickly as possible.

“Was the town hall somewhere here?..” wondered Gawain, narrowing his eyes at one of the buildings, the one with a suspiciously high number of floors, which meant two of them. He tried to stare down the blinding afternoon sun, where it shone at him through the hole in the wall. After several rapid blinks, he gave up and raised his hand to shield his eyes. Weird, he though, how no one had tried to clear the rubble or at least steal the stones.

Lancelot hummed noncommittally, but then seemed to remember what they were looking for, and startled. With a visible effort, as if wrangling his way out of the spider web, he tore his eyes away from the wall.

“Yeah. It was there or... There. I think,” he faltered, and then added, barely audible, “I can’t remember.” 

He wasn’t sure what he expected to hear in reply – it was not like the other man could help him here, he had never been in this part of Brittany before. The patchwork memories of his youth were hardly enough for him to piece together the route on his own, though – he needed help, no matter how much he hated to admit it. So, he repeated, louder this time, voice raising higher: “Gawain? Gawain, why can’t I remember?”

The knight shifted from one foot to another, and pity flickered across his face – which Lancelot, thankfully, did not notice, his eyes still roaming the streets.

“It was a long time ago, Lance,” Gawain muttered gently.

Lancelot shook his head and mumbled something disagreeing, the words muffled by the knuckles he was biting on. Taking his hand away, he said, clearer this time: “But it was important.”

Gawain moved as if to come closer, a pained expression on his face. He reached his hand out but then changed his mind and dropped it before it could touch Lancelot, who still shifted slightly away – just a change in the angle of his body, nothing more, but the minute gesture spoke volumes. “It is important to you now. Back then you didn’t know it would be.”

Lancelot sucked in a shaky breath, his eyes wide, and again worried at the already raw and tender knuckle with his teeth.

“I was such an idiot,” he breathed out.

“No,” Gawain countered softly, the edge in his tone stolen away by the warm wind. “You were a child.”

Something vile flared in Lancelot’s eyes as his lips curled.

“Isn’t it the same?” he demanded desperately, voice so bitter and brittle it broke by the end of the question. He turned away without waiting for an answer.

“Not even remotely,” Gawain said, keeping his own voice just as level and soothing as always as he studied the slightly trembling shoulders of his lover. 

For a short while, neither of them spoke. The petals of pink hydrangea fluttered in the breeze, and a bee buzzed through the air past the knight’s ear. The horses shifted with a quiet rumble, and the grey one whipped its tail and then shook its head, driving an annoying fly away. Lancelot took a heavy inhale and resolutely tipped his chin up.

“I will go down this street,” he announced, indicating it with a sharp gesture of a hand, “and you go down the other.”

He could feel the weight of Gawain’s stare without turning back and ignored it in favour of choking on the bitter black tar of resentment that bubbled in his throat.

“Is there a reason I take that one?” the knight asked, and his voice, as always when he was beleaguered, betrayed nothing. It was as if the rock was listening to the hissing and bubbling of the stream raging all around him, ancient patience that counterposed feeble petulance, and Lancelot flinched at the thought.

“Yes. I want to be alone,” he threw over his shoulder, eyes roaming the street, lingering on the overgrown ruins and the bright crimson flower heads bobbing gently in the soft breeze. How could it be so peaceful, he thought with helpless, disgusted anger, if those flowers had grown out of the ashes of his home. He didn’t know how to feel about them - should he tear them away? Should he nurture them? What the hell was he to do now?

“Got it,” Gawain muttered behind him, and his disheartened tone snapped Lancelot out of his miserable musings, at last. The sweet scent of flowers grew somehow even sicker when he inhaled, flooded with guilt, and when he pushed the air out of his lungs, it felt as something dark oozed out along with it.

“Don’t be upset,” he pleaded softly, eyes still trained on the scatterings of poppies and the long stems of mallows and the magnificent heads of hydrangeas, but he did not see them anymore. All his senses were trained on Gawain, as he sought the slightest clue to the knight’s reaction – because he couldn’t make himself turn around and face it. Or rather, he just didn’t really want to.

“I am not.”

Gawain was calm. His voice did not waver a bit. 

When the gust of wind ruffled Lancelot’s hair, it brought the scent of sage and nettle.

A small, mirthless smile tugged on the corner of his lips. “You’re a bad liar.”

There was a heartbeat of a charged, heavy silence, as if the storm was coming - he could almost hear the rumble of thunder, despite the vast azure above his head.

“Well, good thing you… Gods,” Gawain broke off; he must have run a hand over his face, as he usually did when trying to compose himself. The barely audible scratching of the bristle on the rough skin was followed by a soft sigh. “I am sorry. Go. I’ll see if I can find something.”

Lancelot nodded and already began to take a step forward, but then he exhaled sharply through his nose and spun around, frantic and ready to break down. Already he opened his mouth and reached out with one hand – but was greeted only with the man’s broad back, his shoulders rounded angrily as he strode away.

Slowly, Lancelot let his hand fall and closed his mouth, before forcing himself to take another shaky inhale. With a quiet sniffle, he wiped hurriedly at his dry, but stinging eyes, and turned back, taking off to follow down the street he had chosen for himself.

\---

When his fingers trailed along the cracked stones of the burned-out huts, they caught on the rough surface, even halted by it every now and then. It became monotonous in a bit, but then, as Lancelot passed the second house, he felt something under his fingers and slowed down to a halt.

The fragile petals touched his hand, slid over his fingertips, and wrapped around his nails, curious, gentle and innocent.

Swallowing around a lump in his throat, he stared blindly at the sunlit road and thought again of what he should do. For a moment, his fingers twitched, as if to grip around the tiny wallflower to tear it out, just like he did with the rest, with the boisterous, brazen mallows and wanton hydrangea that dared to laugh in the face of his sorrow.

Slowly, Lancelot shifted his eyes to the defendant.

It was white; and the sun gilded its edges as it clung to his fingers, blissfully unaware that its fate was being decided right that moment. Only when his eyes started to sting did he remember to blink – and took his hand away a moment after, turning back to the road.

No more flowers died that day.

\---

A soft rustle alerted him to someone’s presence.

He raised his head sharply and froze, nostrils fluttering and eyes darting back and forth over the dense thicket of weeds. The wide plantain leaves that sprawled over the yard of the house he was searching through swayed in the breeze. The bright yellow dandelions stared cheerfully back at him. There did not seem to be anything out of order. 

Frowning, Lancelot shrugged and turned away, wondering if it was just a fox or a rodent scouring the ruins – much like he was; but then the rustle sounded again, closer this time. He froze and then, at the whiff of the wind, drew himself up, stiff spine arching a bit as he prepared for a fight. Another careful sniff confirmed that whoever it was, it wasn’t a Fey.

With that thought, Lancelot put a hand on the handle of the knife tucked in his belt and backed away, melting into the shadows, just as the man rounded the corner of the shed.

\---

Wiping the sweat off his forehead, he shoved the paladin into the hole in the ground and stumbled back, taking a moment to catch his breath. At least he had managed to find a shovel instead of digging a grave with his sword.

With a soft sigh, Lancelot bent over to tear out a bunch of grass. Absently listening to the rustle of the weeds and the distant sound of Gawain talking angrily to the horse, he rubbed at his hands. With quick, rough movements, he wiped the fresh blood off, smearing it until it was indistinguishable from the one that already covered his hands.

Dropping the sorry tangle of leaves and stems on the body, he put his hands on his hips and stared for a second at the wren who was looking over at him from where it sat on the uprooted earth.

“Media vita in morte sumus,” he told it, and grabbed the shovel again.

\---

“Ran into any trouble?”

“No.”

Gawain, who had just entered the same house – two down the street from the one where he’d killed the paladin – waited for something, but then seemed to realise that was it. Giving a quiet cough, he walked over, stared for a second at the rubble Lancelot was sorting through and tried again:

“Me neither.”

“I know,” Lancelot said briskly, and then paused for a moment, before shaking his head. Then he paused again and looked up at the knight, who was studying him with a wry grin. Lifting his brows politely, he waited for the other to speak, since it was obvious Gawain was brimming over with the desire to talk.

“Followed me?” he asked, sounding unreasonably happy about the fact.

“Something like that,” deflected Lancelot, looking away again, but his hands laid motionless as he inspected the bits and pieces of what was once a spindle. “Gawain?” he asked in a hushed voice.

“Yes?”

“Can you come here?”

Confusion spread over the knight’s features. “I am al–ah.”

He hurriedly lowered himself to the ground scooting closer and roughly tugging Lancelot into an embrace. “Sorry. I am an idiot.”

With a quiet sniffle, he nodded, burrowing his face in the dark gambeson for a moment; it smelled of sweat, sage and something earthy and musky, a confusing smell, that of a creature in between a tree and an animal. Were it someone else, it could have probably been unpleasant. As it was, Lancelot would rather die than pull away.

He wrung his face free once he started to grow light-headed, and hooked his chin on the man’s forearm, hesitantly rubbing first his forehead and then his cheek against it. Gawain was kind enough not to comment on the wet patches left behind, even as he ran his thumb gently under his eyes. With a muffled grumble, Lancelot bit at the man’s wrist but then winced at the taste of dust and drew back, earning himself a soft chuckle.

“It’s the sun,” he said weakly and immediately hiccupped, but the brief flare of embarrassment died fast when Gawain frowned in confusion.

“The sun makes you wild,” Lancelot elaborated, and, exhausted by the effort of producing an entire coherent sentence, sagged against the knight’s chest again, curling himself tighter.

Gawain rolled his eyes as he rocked him back and forth, careful not to do it with too much strength. “It makes me strong.”

“If you say so.”

“Lancelot, we _measured_ it.”

He struggled out of the hold with an outraged squawk. “I still don’t understand how it works!” Falling back, he ran a hand through his hair, tugging sharply at the tousled curls, and, when his fingers caught in a tangled lock and yanked viciously, Gawain winced. Lancelot himself did not seem to notice.

“You don’t have to understand something entirely to live with it,” the knight offered in a hushed voice.

The words only deepened the fierce scowl on Lancelot’s face as he shook his head.

“No,” he bit out, “that’s not - wait,” pushing the rogue curl out of the way, he squinted. “Are you talking about the sun.”

His eyes still on the dark coppery strands tilted with gold and red, Gawain sighed. “Among other things.”

Pinned under the weight of the words like a butterfly, Lancelot flailed, not knowing whether he wanted to break free and run or hear more. He opened his mouth and closed it again a couple of times, but the words refused to cooperate. So he tried to convey his feelings by moving his hands in a complicated way. It turned out so haphazard that he couldn’t blame Gawain for failing to fight back an amused smile.

Giving up, Lancelot waved his hand, as if to disperse the choking smoke over the burnt pan – it was fine for once, he told himself, and fell forward, pressing his forehead against the man’s clavicle; without giving his doubts time, he lifted his hand to yank at the laces at the collar. Squeezing his shoulder, Gawain shifted and reached out to run his fingers through the curls. He began to untangle them gently.

“I am sorry,” Lancelot muttered, confession slightly muffled by how he kept his head bowed to allow easier access. “It seems we are both idiots.”

Gawain hummed in agreement.

“At least we are very fast idiots. Only one house left.”

A nagging suspicion grew in Lancelot’s mind at how sanguine he sounded. “Let me guess. It’s the largest.”

“Yes,” the knight confirmed with glee, and he sighed.

\---

It was a stroke of luck there was still a front door left – however rickety, it was good enough for what he wanted to do, which is to kick it open as he stormed out of the house. 

It squealed miserably and hung on one hinge for a moment, before slowly breaking off completely, a heart-wrenching groan of wood and iron piercing the air. Without bothering to throw a glance back at the dull thud when it hit the ground, Lancelot paced back and forth. After three rounds, he stopped, sat down on a nearby boulder, then shot up, kicked a pebble, raising a cloud of dust and scaring the sparrows away, and stood for a moment, watching them swear at him from the branches.

Still seething, Lancelot lowered himself on the boulder again, rested his chin on the intertwined fingers, and took slow breaths, studiously ignoring Gawain, who had emerged from the house as well and now hovered behind him.

“Don’t say it,” he warned in a low voice, and when the other made a soft inquiring noise, elaborated with a flutter of his fingers, “any of it.”

The knight shrugged, brushing off the wood splinters and bits of stone from his sleeves. “Wasn’t going to.”

“I can hear you thinking it,” Lancelot muttered bitterly.

With a soft sigh, Gawain rounded him and went on his knees, catching his hands and squeezing them firmly.

“Lance,” he began, voice earnest and low, “It’s fine. We killed them all. And yes,” he continued, not letting Lancelot interrupt him, “that’s a rather spectacular way to start what was supposed to be a stealth mission, but we are going to make it work. What really worries me is that we still haven’t found that relic – and they sure seemed to think it was important. Next time leave someone alive, just so we can actually question them, alright?”

Lancelot frowned, glancing away, and tugged his hand free, pressing it against the rough surface of the stone underneath him. 

“He almost killed you – I wanted to make sure he won’t have another chance,” he quietly tried to explain, the fingers slippery with coagulating red where they slid against the boulder, leaving ruddy trace behind. So much for trying to hide that one paladin, when now there were five more dead, he thought but felt next to nothing-- just an echo of resentment, buried under the oppressive worry.

“I know,” Gawain shushed him, reaching out to catch his hand again. He gently ran a thumb over the bruised knuckles, until Lancelot found it in himself to meet his eyes again. “And I am very grateful you hauled him off, but what followed…” he trailed off and then sighed. “Just maybe – can you give me a warning when you’re about to slaughter someone in _that_ way?”

There was still a flicker of genuine unease behind his eyes, and the cold spread in Lancelot’s chest when he saw it. 

“I’ll try,” he replied curtly, unwilling to admit that sometimes the violence took him by surprise, pushed him to the back of his own mind and made him watch, helpless, how it gripped the hilt of his sword and drove the blade through someone until they…

He flinched and closed his eyes, but the darkness under his eyelids was too empty, and at the same time too overwhelming. So he opened them again and stared instead at the clump of white flowers a dozen steps away from them. It seemed blissfully unaware of what had transpired, and even if it somehow knew, it did not seem to judge him.

For a short while, neither of them spoke, and he kept running his fingers idly over the warm rock, heated throughout the day. The late afternoon air was heavy with the scent of blood and flowers. But in the end, it was a gentle whiff of the earthy scent that drifted off the golden skin that broke Lancelot’s resolve.

He folded on himself, one hand raising to grasp Gawain by the shoulder, dry blood flaking off like rust from his hand as he pulled the man closer and buried his face into the crook of his neck. Taking a greedy breath, Lancelot pushed back and roughly wiped at his eyes.

“I am a fucking crybaby today,” he remarked dryly when Gawain shot him a questioning look. “I have no idea how you still have the patience to deal with it.”

An odd expression flickered over the knight’s face, and Lancelot watched it warily; his shoulders stiffened when the other man began to speak.

“I have a good reason to.”

A small smile tugged at the corner of his lips as Lancelot leaned slightly back and put on his best haughty expression.

“Namely?” he teased, affecting a bored voice.

Gawain huffed out a laugh, but obliged, closing the distance between them. “You.”

It was so easy to capture him – he was always running towards danger, not away from it, and Lancelot knew he should not have indulged the man. But all the good intentions stayed pushed firmly to the back of his mind as he ran his hand, stained with red, down the soft skin of the other man’s neck, and watched, transfixed, how Gawain pressed into the touch.

Soon – probably too soon, given their circumstances, should they be inclined to bother with them, which they weren’t – it grew heated; literally heated, Lancelot noticed, but he was too caught up in drawing the soft sighs out of Gawain to wonder why it was now hotter than under the high noon sun. 

Pushing the worry aside, he placed his hand on the boulder again, trying to regain his balance under the hail of hungry touches. When the clever, firm mouth trailed down his neck, murmuring reassurances that were perhaps too forgiving, Lancelot gasped softly, throwing his head back, and heaved for air. His shirt was soaked with sweat, it clung to his shoulder blades, and there was a scent of something burning – alright, what the...

There was a soft sizzling sound, the sparks flew into the air, and then the stone cracked under his fingers.

With a muffled swear, Lance surged up; he barely managed to straighten Gawain, who, caught unaware, stumbled back hard. For a moment, they clutched at each other in a rather undignified manner, hair wild and clothes askew. Gawain’s eyes were dazed as he searched his face, trying to understand what happened, but before he could ask, Lancelot whirled around and kneeled in front of the stone.

There was, indeed, a crack in it, the edges of it melted – but when he carefully touched it, it was not hot to the touch. Frowning in confusion, he hooked his fingers, slipped them in and…

“It’s hollow,” he marvelled aloud and then turned to Gawain. “Can you help?”

It took a moment for the knight to catch on the meaning, but then he nodded and, with a shaky inhale, stepped closer. The earth came alive, mounds of it shifting as the roots of the plants came to the surface, unfurling, slow but steady; and then they dipped into the crack to pull it apart.

When they brushed against his fingers, Lancelot pulled them out and threw a furtive glance at Gawain. Worried by the deep scowl the man wore, he went to put his hand back, but before he could help the straining roots, the knight’s lips twisted in a silent sneer. The loud, groaning crack sounded through the air, and the stone fell apart, revealing what was hidden inside.

Both men stared at the old, dusty book, and then they looked simultaneously at one another.

“Do you think they were looking for this?”

“Can’t think what else it can be.”

They fell silent again. With a hesitant hand, Lancelot reached out and brushed his fingertips over the cover. Nothing happened. Emboldened, he clasped his fingers around the spine of the book and pulled it out.

Runes were running across the dark crimson of the front cover, the gold strokes faded with time, but still readable. Gawain moved closer, peering at them as well, and he saw the knight frown again.

“I don’t know this language,” he admitted, and Lancelot realised he had to say something. His heart was in his mouth, and it took him a moment to draw enough air in to speak.

“I think I do,” he muttered in reply and squeezed his fingers a bit tighter. “It’s our… it’s ours. Something about – family trees?..”

The green gaze shifted to him, the weight of it almost a tangible thing with how fragile and untethered Lancelot felt. He swallowed thickly, and pressed the book a bit closer to his chest, but then remembered about the blood on his hands, and had to tear it away, handing it to Gawain. The knight took the book as carefully as if it could bite him. 

“We should read it somewhere where we won’t ruin the pages,” he said, and it was a very sensible thing to say, but Lancelot still felt his heart fall. “I know you want to do it now – but...”

“No, you’re right,” Lancelot interrupted, and shrugged, acutely aware of the dust, sweat and blood that covered every inch of his body in varying proportions. “Even I feel filthy, so you must be dying.”

It was a long-standing argument of theirs, about how he cared little for the propriety as long as it did not hinder his efficiency. Usually, Lancelot would have gotten an earful of insistent, very logical, absolutely irrelevant notations, but right now, Gawain limited himself to an eye-roll, and then grew serious again and gave him a stiff nod.

“Let’s clean up – but first these fellas,” he nodded at the house, where the bodies of paladins started to ooze the rotten odour that made Lancelot wince in disgust. “Should also go find their horses.”

“Horses?” he perked up, feeling a tiny bit better. “Stealing?”

“Yes,” Gawain smiled wryly. “We are stealing paladins’ horses. And coin. And whatever we find, to be honest. Let’s hope they had spare clothes.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> gods, it's been a while. there is a fair chance i've fucked up some consistency, i'll go over it later, if you see something outrageous, let me know.
> 
> this is all such a lucid dream, anyway.


End file.
